Xierra's Birthday Round-up

My not-so-little girl is going to be 7 this May.  Ugh. S-E-V-E-N!  Ridiculous.  This means that I have about a month to plan her birthday party - and although that might seem like plenty of time for most moms, in reality, I'm beating myself up for putting it off and only getting started with the planning now.

Almost every year, so far, I've made the invitations to Xierra's birthday parties and/or baked her treats.  Here is a roundup of past celebrations (minus her first birthday, cuz I don't seem to have any pics of it..?!)

TWO

We invited to kids to the Children't Museum in the morning and then we just had a family lunch at a restaurant in the afternoon -- I was pretty upset that the cake I ordered ended up being iced in a gross grey-toned purple, when it was originally supposed to be pink.  I made the topper myself, using foam board, and flower scrapbooking embellishments.  Wasn't anything special, but it helped draw the eyes away from the cake itself.

The invitations were fun to make.  Each page was a different colour and had different bits of information on them.  I strung each of the pages on bath tub chains and boxed the invitations up in pink jewelry boxes.  I included a little suction cup hook in the box and placed a clear tag on the chain that read "hang me" 

THREE

When Xierra turned three, I was a Manager at the SilverCity movie theatre.  It only made sense to hold her party there, since I had an "in". haha.  We watched Shrek the Third with all of her little cousins and celebrated in the party room.

The invitations were small and simple.  The front was decorated with paper flowers and 3 birthday candles.They opened up and had a little pocket inside for the insert containing all of the party details.  

I baked these little mini cakes and decorated them as different animals, using candy and royal icing.  It was my first attempt at being creative with food, and after completing them, I was hooked!

FOUR

I guess I was just a bad mom this year -- I guess I didn't make invitations for this birthday party because I have nothing on file.  This year was a 'combined party' with Xierra's cousin Taya.  We had visitors come up from Chicago and Toronto (for my wedding social) and ended up doing a bowling party with just a gathering back at the house for food.

Xierra was in Nursery at this time, and so I baked cute little ice cream cone cupcakes for her class.  They were a hit!

FIVE

We celebrated this birthday at Michael's, doing what Xierra loves best -- CRAFTS!  They made little gumball holders, it was so much fun.

I was well into my business by this time, and so I decided to go a little fancier for her invitations.  I used some shimmer cardstock, printed the details on the front and inside, and then added patterned paper to the cover, and some glitter to spice it up.  5 little birdies.

As much as I'd love to take COMPLETE credit for this cake....I actually ordered a 2 tier, non-decorated cake from Maxim Bakery, and then decorated it myself.

I baked all of the little cookie flowers and fence posts, frosted the cake with a light green buttercream, added oreo cookie crumbs to the top to make it look like a flower bed, and then added all of the cute little flower cookies that I baked and iced myself.

SIX

Last year we celebrated another 'combined party' with Xierra's cousin Tyler.  My sister and I decided to do a 'swimming party' at CanadInns Polo Park.  It was great -- the kids swam for an hour and then we had pizza and dessert in a little meeting room once they were done.

Later on in the evening, we had a dinner at Kum Koon Restaurant with family and friends.

Baked vanilla cupcakes for Xierra's Kindergarten class:

I designed the invitations, got them printed and layered them onto some blue shimmer cardstock.

Another halfmade/homemade cake -- bought a plain white iced cake from Extra foods and decorated it with little characters in swimming tubes.  haha.. so fun.  The characters heads are Nilla wafers, and the tubes are donuts.  The ladies bikini's are jelly beans and their faces are decorated using chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

Baked and iced these sea creature cookies for the kids.  *love* how they turned out :)

 Keeping with the theme, the loot bags were sand pails filled with goodies: towel, flip flops, goggles, and treats.

So now I have the challenge of planning another party, and have no idea where to start.  Now that she's getting older and has 'school friends', I'm thinking about booking a gymnastics party at GYMKYDS, but don't have any other ideas outside of that.


Let the party-planning stress begin...