A Pinktastic Party!

Our local civic theater is currently showing Pinkalicious, and because I have a little girl who happens to love all things pink, we just had to make a fun day of it. Along with our awesome neighbor girls and their moms, we had a pink-filled day complete with lunch at our new favorite restaurant, Licari's Sicilian Pizza Kitchen, the show, and then a pinktastic cupcake and bracelet making party afterwards.

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(this may be my most photo-heavy blog post ever, consider yourself warned!)

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First, a little party-prep...

I used a variety of pink cupcake liners, all purchased from Hey Yo Yo on Etsy
(FYI, this shop has ridiculously fast turnaround time on orders!)

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I made vanilla cupcakes, but didn't think to dye them pink, oops!
Here's the recipe :

Ingredients :
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites from large eggs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, shortening, milk and vanilla.
Mix on low for 2 minutes.
Scrape bowl.
Add egg whites and mix on high for 2 minutes or until fluffy and smooth.
Fill liners 1/2 to 2/3 full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes (I found 22 to be the best length of time!)
Cool for 10 minutes.
Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Next for the frosting, I used this Almost-Homemade Vanilla Buttercream recipe found on the Odd Girl Out Blog.

Ingredients :
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
16 oz marshmallow creme
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Beat butter in mixer on medium speed until fluffy.
Add marshmallow creme and beat until smooth.
Scrape sides.
Add powdered sugar and vanilla.
Beat until light and fluffy.

(hey, I never said I was serving up healthy party food!)
Next, for cupcake toppers, I used these free Pinkalicious toppers found here

I used my 2" punch to cut them out, and then used tooth picks and my hot glue gun to assemble themta da!

and the whole batchAt each girl's place setting was a packet of Pinkalicious activity sheets that I found at www.thinkpinkalicious.com. I had them printed on heavy paper and tied each packet together with a ribbon. I had jars filled with pink and red crayons in the center of the table.

also at each girl's place setting was a favor bag filled with cherry slices and topped off with pink and white ribbon and more of the cupcake toppers that I punched using my 2" scalloped punch

each place setting also included a pink pencil and some pink candy in a small pink cupcake liner

the last detail on each place setting was pink and white stripe straws, also from Hey Yo Yo in glass bottles (which are actually Starbucks Frappuccino bottles, that's my little secret!)all I know is if I was a four year old girl walking up to a table full of all this pink goodness, I'd be giddy with excitement!
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Now, for the day of...

everyone wears pink to see Pinkalicious, of course!

Claire's pettiskirt is from Dream Spun Kids on Etsy.
Buying one is definitely a splurge, but they're so dreamy and so worth it!
(Grand Rapids folks, check out their store in Ada!)

lunch at Licari's with our sweet neighbor girls and their moms

the show definitely did not disappoint.

way to go Grand Rapids Civic Theater!

and seeing your girl beaming while meeting Pinkalicious, so sweet!
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after the show it was time to head back home for our pinktastic party...YUM!
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after cupcakes, strawberries and pink punch, we moved on to craft time...a neighbor was kind enough to make pink clay beads for each of the girls and had all of the supplies needed to make bracelets divided into pink muffin cupsassembling braceletsadorable!

Whew, that's a lot of pink!
What a special day, I'm so grateful for these fun memories with our neighbors!

linking up with :
Tatertots & Jello

Cupcake Party Planning

All along, we've said that we were not going to do birthday parties for our kids except on milestone years (1, 5, 10...). This funny thing happens though when your kid starts getting invited to other kid's birthday parties, and they realize that's what people do. So for Claire's 4th birthday, which happens to be exactly one month from today, we're doing a little party.

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I'm loving all the baking-themed parties I'm seeing on blogs and such lately, and since Claire does love to bake, it seemed perfect! I've created a Pinterest board to start collecting ideas for the party, here's a few items I've pinned...

Source: cookiemondays.com via Jill on Pinterest

Source: blog.amyatlas.com via Jill on Pinterest

Source: ihavetosay.typepad.com via Jill on Pinterest

Adorable, huh?!?
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Here are my first few purchases for the party, all from Hey Yo Yo on Etsy...
I have a million ideas swirling in my head, but for now I'm just waiting for Claire to start school next week and then I'll have some time to start pulling it all together. I'm pretty certain I'm going to have one giddy little 4 year old!

Favorite Picture of the Week

love these two!

Monday's 10 Things

I had a Monday's 10 Things post started, and just sat down to finish it.
But since my day looked a lot like this...(and that's no joke, let me tell you about her ear-piercing screams)
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I think I'm going to just forget about my Monday post this week, turn off the computer, put my feet up and eat the very large bowl of ice cream Eric is scooping me at this moment instead.
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Happy (calm & quiet) Monday everyone!

My Super Hero

Claire was invited to a birthday party this weekend for Eli & Jonah, twin brothers from her preschool class. Claire has been smitten with Eli since the start of the school year, and Jonah has recently made his way into the picture too. So needless to say, the party was a b.i.g. deal for this girl!

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The invite for the party read that kids are welcome to wear a super hero costume. Okay, so we're pretty sure Claire knows what super heroes are, but we've never once purchased anything super hero for her. So this mumma got to work creating a Super Claire costume!
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First up was a super hero t-shirt. I used my Cricut to cut out paper shapes for the design plus the letter "C". This allowed me to play around with sizes and placement prior to actually cutting into any fabric. Once I had each of my shapes selected, I used Heat N' Bond Ultra Hold Iron-on Adhesive to create the fabric shapes.And finally, I cut the shapes out and adhered them to a white t-shirt......and here's what it looked like!
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Next up was a super hero cape. I found some hot pink, bright green and teal shiny costume fabrics that all had a bit of sparkle to them (of course!) The night before the party, I sat down with no pattern and no plan but just began cutting and sewing and thankfully, the cape came together really well!
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And here's our super hero!
she plays the part well!a hair clip to match with some leftover scraps from the capeso long, Super Hero Claire!
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This was such a fun project to make, and I had a blast watching Claire running around at the party with her friends. She loves wearing the cape, so I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more of Super Hero Claire!

Favorite Picture of the Week

My "Aha Moment"

Let me tell you about my little girl. She loves my junk drawer or any treasure she may find in my purse. She loves using scissors to cut and always finds ways to use Scotch tape to put things back together. In fact, she can blow through a three pack of Scotch tape like it's no one's business. She loves collecting and considers anything she finds to be a real prize. She loves projects.

She doesn't love toys. She's got toys, a whole room full of them. In fact, every Christmas and birthday we buy her new toys convinced that one of them is going to be her "ultimate" and that for sure she'll play with it. But no luck. For the longest time this bothered me. I wondered why sitting down and playing with dolls just didn't seem to interest her while other girls her age may be all about dolls. I worried about her imagination.

After my new craft room was complete, we did some room-swapping and moved Claire's play room into my old craft room. As part of the new set up, I decided I would try my hardest to come up with a good way to organize her art supplies. Here was my solution:a shelf system with individual, removable buckets, each one holding a different kind of art supply. The risk involved here as far as I would concerned : she would now have unlimited access to her art supplies. (oh the messy possibilities!)

Within minutes of getting up the morning after the new system was set up, Claire ran to her new play room and didn't come out for some time. I finally went in to check her, and there she was, paints open, brush in hand, working on a picture.My first reaction was to panic a little bit. All those open paints, and I wasn't there to supervise??? But after my initial heart attack, I realized she was completely happy, completely content, and completely under control.And in that moment, I realized that the fact that she prefers projects to toys is certainly nothing that I'm going to stress over. She knows what she likes, and does what makes her happy. And I certainly don't worry about her imagination. She creates some pretty awesome, creative projects that make us wonder what's going on in that little brain of hers!
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So....
when I walk in and catch her with paints, play dough and other messy supplies open, I'm not going to panic at the messes she might be making. When I go to use my Scotch tape and realize she's again depleted my supply, I'm not going to get frustrated. I'm going to continue to hang her school and other art projects in her "museum" because I'm proud of her work and want her to know that. I'm going to sit down and craft with her every time she'll allow me. (Because let's face it, this mumma would rather craft than play with dolls any day too!)

And next birthday or Christmas, there will for sure be a heavy emphasis on art and craft supplies rather than toys she's not going to play with anyway. I'm so proud of my little artist!

Favorite Picture of the Week