Sydney's 8th Birthday Party

Today is my baby girl's 8th birthday. I can't believe how fast time has flown by! Seems like just yesterday she was this tiny little 6-lb-baby with unruly hair and the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen! Well, her eyes are still huge, but her hair has calmed down quite a bit ;) This past weekend we celebrated with family and friends with the most colorful of parties I could dream up in this crazy head of mine.  Here are some highlights... (for info on the dress and the invitations, see my previous post)

The refreshments table:



Let's take a closer look at everything on here. I made every single thing except for the cake (you'll see why in a bit). These are rainbow fruit skewers:



Button (butter) cookies:



Nutella-filled croissants (like this):



Cheddar cheese-filled croissants:



Coconut crémes (I used this recipe but replaced peppermint extract for coconut extract and added about 1/4 cup of coconut flakes) YUM:



Fresh-squeezed lemonade and strawberry juice:



And then there was the cake, oh the cake! Like I said, this was the only thing I didn't make myself. I had a local cake maker do this based on this recipe. I just  wasn't ambitions enough to tackle it on my own, but you'll see in a bit why I wish I had. ;)



As far as activities go, I set up two stations for the girls. One was a coloring station. I designed my own Lalaloopsy coloring book, using downloadable pages from their Facebook page:



I pretty much just printed the pages -- 10 pages/dolls for each book -- and designed a custom cover for it. Then, I purchased crayon boxes for each girl.



Then there was a Sew-Your-Own-Button-Headband station. I used Scunci headbands and lots and lots of colorful buttons (like on this post). We used embroidery needles and topstitching thread.



There were 14 girls total, so I divided them into 2 groups. Half of them went to the coloring station...



And the other half went to the headband station:



Then, about 45 minutes later or so, they switched stations so that they all got to do everything...



But, by far, everyone's favorite activity at the party was the decorate-the-cake part! Oh, my, how much fun they all had with these edible ink markers!!!







One of the girls wrote "Eat Me" on the cake, so of course all the adults were giggling in the back like little school girls... haha



Then it was time to blow the candles...





This is what the cake looked like on the inside. And this is why I wish, in hindsight, that I had made it myself... the layers were NOT in rainbow color order as I requested! :( I know it's not a big deal but I am just anal like that and I wanted everything perfect! Can you blame me?



Well, the cake was delicious and no one mentioned the color issue (maybe they were just being polite) so I'd say the party was a success! Sydney opened her gifts...



And we took some group pictures with the birthday girl...



And of course, the obligatory "silly face pic" :)





Ahhhh... I can finally breathe... and rest! (well, at least until the next party!)
Happy, happy birthday to my sweet baby girl! Please stop growing so fast.