Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Bekah's Birthday

Rebekah celebrated her 4th birthday in December (yes, I'm late getting the pictures out)!  I can't believe it has been 4 years since she was born...it's been so fun watching her grow. 

We started the day, bright and early, by making cupcakes. Bekah loves to help cook in the kitchen and has gotten quite talented at adding ingredients, cracking eggs and stirring them all together. We did cupcakes as they were quicker to do since time was limited.

 While the cupcakes were baking we blew up balloons and decorated. After all one can't have a party without decorations and balloons! The more balloons the better. I had bought a big bag of balloons at the dollar store - lesson learned! :) lol About 1/3 of them were unusable due to holes or being malformed. However, I do believe it was still cheaper in the long run then buying super expensive balloons and having them all work!

Around 10:30 AM several of her little friends showed up - we had 12 kids in total - 11 of those 4 and under. Praise God three of the moms stayed and helped.  Thanks ladies!!! 
Bekah loves to do arts and crafts so when I asked her what she wanted to do at her birthday party she quickly responded "Paint!"  Oh Boy! So I purchased some frames for $1 each at Michael's and some decorative items to add on there as well as paint and paint brushes. I also picked up some plastic table clothes at the dollar store. 
I wasn't sure what to expect - that many children in my small house with paint. But I must say they all did a great job. There was no paint spilled on the floor and it was all on the plastic table cover. Kid's clothes were relatively clean (Yes, I did warn parents and told them to come in 'get dirty' clothes). I learned a few lessons as well though: First - don't give kids every color of paint - I think most of the kids went home with army green/gray frames as they mixed all the colors together. Later we had extra frames and I gave Lizzie and Bekah just two colors each (two that when mixed, would make another pretty color). :) Oh well - live and learn. My second lesson learned is that kids do crafts in variable amounts of time. Bekah is one who can sit for well over an hour working on something...not so much with other 2, 3 and 4 year olds. However, the ones that were done early did a great job cleaning up and playing nicely while the others finished. 



 After painting we had pizza - and let it be know that three Jack's pizza will feed 4 mom's and 12 kids! :) And of course cupcakes! Bekah wanted green and pink so we got some "spray" frosting in those colors and she sprayed each one after I frosted it with a white base. If I was really nifty like Amanda over at I Am Baker I could have been much more creative with the cake...but alas - it is not my gift!: ) Pink cupcakes with pink and green frosting.


 
I believe a good time was had by all! :)  Bekah loved creating the frames and still talks about it. One thing about winter birthdays is you can't really have them outside. Going to Chuck E Cheese's is just way beyond our price range (do you know they charge about $18 PER KID for a party there and you get a slice of pizza, a pop and a piece of cake with a few tokens for each one!) So I need to put on my creative hat and start thinking up many more ideas for the future. Anyone want to share some???

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