Horse Theme Party

For Miss Optimism’s ninth birthday party, she wanted a horse theme party.  She loves horses, though with her allergies, she cannot actually ride them.  Having two kids with December birthdays is always a challenge, but I was so fortunate this time to have The Ferrari ice the cake for me.  I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things including cake decorating, so when I ice the cakes myself, it can take me anywhere from two and a half to four hours to finish, but as long as someone else is doing it, I don’t much care whether it’s perfect or not, so having him do this for me saved me hours of work.

This was The Ferrari (who is 15)’s very first time ever piping a cake and he did an amazing job!  What an amazing gift for his little sister and for his mom!  This is the finished product:

Decorations were pretty easy.  I had ordered horse plates, napkins, cups, banner, and blowouts.  I didn’t get a tablecloth, as I thought the wood table would be best.  I found a plastic bucket at the dollar store that looked like a tin feeding bucket.  I put the treat bags in the bucket and placed it in the middle of the table to build a centrepiece around.  I propped up some carrots with stalks on the bucket, propped up a foam cowgirl hat, and placed an apple next to that.  So simple, so inexpensive, but it worked well.  I placed little plastic horses on the table, which the party guests were able to take home after the party.

For activities, the girls at the party coloured white cardboard horses and they decorated the foam hat from the centrepiece with foam horse and cowgirl theme stickers.  We played “Trainer Says” which is like “Simon Says” but horse themed so the girls pretended to be horses and I said things like “trainer says swat the flies” or “trainer says trot”.  This went over well.  I had another game planned, but the girls decided to play a make believe barnyard game instead.

For food, I of course served carrots and apple slices and the birthday girl’s request of macaroni and cheese. Here is a picture of the happy birthday girl.

I can still hardly believe that the baby girl who came to us at 4 lbs. 14 oz. is now 9 years old! We love you like crazy muffins Miss Optimism!