The Chaos and the Clutter

Sharla Kostelyk

Penguin Theme Party

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It is no secret that Granola Girl’s favourite thing in the world (next to God and her family) is penguins.  For her sixth birthday, she asked for a penguin theme party.  This one is not as easy to pull off as themes where the cake pan and decorations are ready made, but I was up to the challenge!

For the cake, I baked a cake in the 3D mini bear pan, cut off its ears and feet, made a beak out of part of one of the ears and glued it on with icing, moved the feet to the front and iced.

Then with the remaining cake batter, I poured it into a glass bowl and attempted to bake an igloo cake.  This one didn’t really turn out because it stuck to the bowl really badly and came out in pieces so I had to use the other side of it, so it wasn’t very round, but six year olds didn’t care. I sprinkled icing sugar over everything to look like snow and voila – penguin cake!

For activities, the kids did races with a balloon between their legs, like the dad penguins carrying the eggs, made a penguin craft, and made sugar cube igloos. The kids who stayed later also got to watch the movie “Happy Feet”.

For food for the penguin party, the kids ate Penguins of Madagascar pasta, fish crackers, Oreos (because they are black and white), and drank blue punch (for the ice cold water that penguins like). Granola Girl had a great time!

A Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

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For his birthday party, our son Snuggle Puppy chose a Mickey Mouse theme.  The cake was a big hit!

For the cupcakes, I made a spice cake, iced with buttercream, and then cut three circles out of fondant to make a Mickey Mouse head on the top of most of them.  I don’t usually make a cake AND cupcakes for the kids’ parties, this party was extra special as it was Snuggle Puppy’s first real birthday party ever.

I made Mickey Mouse shaped Rice Krispie treats on lollipop sticks and displayed them by hiding a Kleenex box inside a gift bag and poking the sticks in holes in the bag and box.  I handed them out to the kids as they were leaving.

The birthday boy loved the celebration just for him.  We had fourteen kids here, plus our seven, and seventeen adults.  For food, we served Mickey shaped hamburgers with the fixings, a layered dip, potato salad, Asian salad, devilled eggs, crackers, cheese, pickles, pickled asparagus, and cheese dips.  It was a beautiful day, so the kids played outside most of the time and I didn’t need to organize many activities.  We played Mickey-Mickey-Minnie (like duck-duck-goose) and I had Mickey party colouring sheets for the kids with markers set out.  It was an easy theme to work with as far as colours and decor go.  Most importantly, Snuggle Puppy absolutely loved all of it!!!