PENGUIN PARTY

Waddle on over and join us for one “cool” party! We decided to have the boys birthday parties a bit early this year- Saturday, October 10th to be exact. With weekends being so busy, and Halloween actually falling on a Saturday, we thought this would pan out better. Plus, the boys get to turn their birthday celebrations in to a month long celebration. All good in my book. Heh. Well, you have to spoil them sometimes.

Auntie Kelly flew in from Chicago in honor of a very special 2 year old and a 4 year old. Tiger was bouncing around for the past week, “Party! Party!” and Nishad all a buzz with seeing his friends. For anyone that doesn’t believe a 2 year old gets what a party means, they haven’t met Tiger. He’s one smart cookie.

Auntie Kelly helped me transform the basement into the Arctic zone after my weeks of planning and prep. I had to order a lot of things online this time around because I only had a week to prepare because I was sick and in the hospital from a reaction to the injections I was given. Full speed ahead…this Mommy refuses to disappoint, and I know with my true and trusted bestie at my side, nothing is impossible.

I ordered their cakes from a cake artist that hand designed two original cakes for the boys; Queen of Cakes located in Edina, Minnesota. For two cakes (one 9-inch and one 10-inch) it was $80.00. I can attest that the cakes were not only cute, but I received a lot of compliments on how well the cakes tasted. I couldn’t have been happier with their work. Of course, Mother Nature also rose to the occasion, providing a dusting of snow on the morning of the party. There was just enough “powdered sugar” effect to make everything “naturally” perfect! The morning of, Kelly and I ventured out on some slick roads to retrieve the cakes. Alas, we got them, safely in on piece (Kelly held on to them for the love of cakes!).

The night before, she and I had so much fun decorating the basement with hues of blue and snowflakes. I ordered snow flakes that hung down in a row for $6 each (for a total of $28.00) at oriental trading company. We cut plastic dark blue and light blue table cloths, $1.50 each and stapled them to the unfinished basement ceiling for the sky. We made an igloo out of poster board, penguins on top and Kelly finished it off with a little finishing pond for the penguins to go ice fishing. I printed off 55 black and white photos to create a “darkroom” strung across the wall, which showcased pictures of the boys form birth to present. I rented three tables and 15 chairs along with a helium tank for $90.00 from General Rental in Monticello. Of course, with helium, on needs balloons. Upon seeing dark blue and light blue balloons, Mr. Nishad said, Mommy, you need some yellow as penguins and black and white and yellow! Over 60 balloons filled the house. It was neat.

For the menu, we served up (homemade) vegetarian chili, with chicken tortilla soup, and corn bread (shaped like fish), along with imported black and white bow tie pasta, salsa (to keep you hot), hot chocolate, cider and the most ADORABLE olive penguins…almost too flippin’ cute to eat! Auntie Kelly worked on this precious army of black and white while I cooked up the rest.

Every guest that received an invitation was asked to dress in black and white. In turn there was a sea of black and white…everyone looked so cute! All in all, we had 34 guests; 21 adults and 13 children- not including two families that had to cancel last minute because they got sick (we missed you Benites’ and Geryol!). Yes, a house full, but we care for everyone so much for everyone that attended and it means so much that they took the time to celebrate such a milestone with our boys, we would do it again in a second!

We played the “catch the fish” game, ice hockey-slap shot and carry the penguin’s egg. The prizes were snowflake pencils and penguin notebooks. For the kid favors, we gave blue snowflake mugs filled with an organic penguin bar, Swedish fish and hot-chocolate. For the “family” favor, we gave black boxes filled with black and white candy, complete with a snowflake on top.

Thank you also to MB for helping me make the penguin banner and for helping the kids break in all their fun birthday toys while the clean up process began. The following day, we had to take both Kelly and Ashish to MSP as Kelly returned back to Chicago and Ashish flew out to SFO for the World Oracle Conference.

Thank you to all that attend. It was so great seeing you all. And a BIG thank you to Auntie Kelly for all her undivided attention, creativity and help (The boys just love you so much!). Another kiss of a thank you to my honey who let’s me do as I wish. XO.