Friday, October 9, 2015

Sophia's Third Birthday- Ice Cream Party Edition

As Sophia's birthday approached I started asking her what kind of party she wanted. She'd mirror back whatever answer Grace had most recently mention (rainbow, Frozen, Tinkerbell,) or another character (Daniel Tiger,) and I would keep steering her away. I've done two character parties and they are just so difficult to pull off here with no craft stores and limited party and color options.

So when she came up with a theme of her own I actually paused for a minute, until I thought it through....

Fire.

Yep. My sweet little (then) two year old daughter had asked for a FIRE birthday party.

Not a firefighter party.

Not a fireworks party.

Not even a campfire and s'mores type of party.

No. Girlfriend requested a fire party, with "lots of fire everywhere!!"

And, seeing as I didn't want "pyromaniac," to be settled on her permanent record all because of a birthday party theme I looked for an escape route.

Cue the backpeddling and trying to convince her that a Rainbow-Daniel Tiger- Tinkerbell combo party was a better idea than FIRE.

But, as you all know, two year olds aren't the most logical of the human species. She was not having it. All she wanted was fire.

I even went onto Pinterest to prove that a fire theme could not be easily pulled of, but, as luck would have it, there are many a flame top cake options out there.

So instead I chose a theme all by myself and proved it to her via the world wide web. Ice Cream. Just about the exact opposite of fire (well, it would be ICE, right? and Ice would be too close to Frozen, so I went with cute, whimsical ice cream.)

I thank all of the bloggers out there now who have ice cream parties pinned on Pinterest because their beautiful creations saved my hiney.

Sophia was hooked. Ice Cream party it was.

I didn't quite have it all together (as in, I never made an invitation, just sent out some text messages,) but we had a cute ice cream party for Sophia today that was laid back, simple, and so exciting for her!

Party Planning and executing is not my forte, like, at all. But as simple as this one was, and budget friendly, I'm happy with the results.

We had two garlands of ice cream cones that I had printed, cut up, and strung, along with some Sofia the First baloons because I could not find any plain colored balloons. #expatproblems

On the dining room table we had all of the ice cream fixings, including cupcake liners filled with crushed Oreos, M&M's, gummy candies, and waffle cone pieces. We also had sprinkles, caramel and chocolate topping, and maraschino cherries (of course.)

We had a centerpiece of super cute ice cream cones topped with cotton candy. They were suppossed to be our party favors and I made them ahead of time and sealed them in baggies but the few days made the cotton candy shrink and compress into hard scoops, so I just made it decor.

We had a few little snacks, juice boxes, and water, but since it was at snack time I was fairly confident the ice cream cone cupcakes and ice cream would be enough before people left to find their own dinner.

The kids had two activities: one was a craft where they could color and glue down circles (ice cream scoops,) onto a paper plate, then glue down colored paper bits (sprinkles.) The other activity was Pin the Ice Cream Scoop on the cone! It was fun and enough for the kiddos, besides the legos and Disney people we had set up to play with. Any more would have been too much with that crowd (14 kids! plus many of their parents.)


We almost didn't open up presents, but in the end we did. It's pretty split. Obviously our American culture thinks it is very normal to open the presents at the party, but European cultures think it's extremely rude. And seeing as we had Americans, Peruvian, British, Swedish, and Emirati cultures being represented, I didn't know what to do. But Sophia (and all of the kids,) kept asking to open presents so I caved. 

Sophia handed out Marshmallow Sticks as party favors (you're welcome, parents, for sugaring up your children and then sending them home.)


 Sophia was pretty afraid of the candle smoke (oh the irony,) after her birthday candle incident last week, but she humored me and let me light the candle when we sang to her, but insisted I blow out the candle and keep the scary smoke away from her! Poor Soey!



 Happy birthday, sweet girl! It was fun to celebrate you!


4 comments:

Unknown said...

She is just so sweet! The party looks like it was a success! You are an amazing mom!

Alison H said...

Um..."I'm not a good party thrower"...or something like that...NO. You are amazing! You always have the most precious parties for your kiddos!

Courtney said...

Awesome job, Brit! I don't know what you're talking about not being able to execute party planning. And she looks so much like you!

Unknown said...

Brittany this is such a cool idea!!!! I think it would be great for adult parties too