When I was a really little kid, we would have birthday parties at home, with a store bought cake, and if we were fancy, there were fill-in-the-blank invitations. It was usually just my sibling, hillbilly cousins, and maybe some neighbor kids. The only game we played was the Bozo Grand Prize game with pots and pans. When I got a little older, it just meant some cash and an ice cream cake from DQ. I don’t remember bad birthday parties, but I don’t have a lot of great memories from them either. You can read about my favorite birthday HERE.
I’ve talked about this before, but timing of Haven and Olive’s birthdays couldn’t be more different for us. Olive’s is two weeks before Christmas, when we are already shopping too much and have to pay our personal taxes on our vehicles. On the other hand, Haven’s is at the end of February, which is always the same week as my company bonus.
Olive gets everything wrapped in Christmas paper and stuck back under the tree. And Haven’s parties look like an episode of MTV’s Sweet 16.
This will all come back up in therapy one day.
Anyway, for Haven’s party, he wanted a Mario theme. Chris bought one of the old school Nintendo’s at a second hand video game store last year. We all play the original Nintendo every night. He doesn’t know about Mario Kart or anything like that yet. He still thinks Mario is pixilated and has learned to blow in the games to make them work. This makes me feel like he is earning some passage through life.
A few years back, one of Chris’s friends had a Mario party and we all wore costumes. I thought it would be fun for the little kids and this Dr. Mario freak at heart to dress up a bit. I had a bucket of mustaches for all of the guests to wear.
Since Olive isn’t much into costumes, we decided she could be the mean, little goomba, since she pretty much despises any company at our house. I painted on some eyebrows but at the last minute decided to wipe them off. She will already have a list of things I have forced upon her to justify the reasons she is in prison, I will not add this one to the list. The party ended up being a blast. It was about 50 degrees so we rented a bounce house for the backyard, had a piñata, and I ordered Mario cookies for all of the kids from The Cookie Therapist. I know Dawn from high school. She doesn’t ship yet, but if you are in the central Illinois area, contact her—she does amazing work.
When it was Chris’s friends party a few years ago, I made this Mario Bros cupcake cake out of 138 mini cupcakes (when I made it before, it took 141 mini cupcakes. I think I got delusional and ate a few in the process). It was a lot of work, but the guests loved it. So I decided to make it again. If anyone is interested in doing this too, this is what you will need:
(2) boxes of cake mix (white or yellow is best)
(2) cans of frosting (preferable an off-white color like cream cheese flavor)
(1) can of chocolate frosting
12 dozen mini cupcake liners
Wilton gel colors (from Michael’s) or standard food coloring
Using 1 ½ cans of the white frosting, make the following:
# red cupcakes = 37
# blue cupcakes = 32
# yellow cupcakes = 2
Using the can of chocolate frosting, set aside just enough to do the dark chocolate parts of Mario’s face (7 cupcakes). Then adding the ½ can of white frosting left over, add a tiny bit of white to the chocolate frosting to make a light brown (22 cupcakes), then add the remaining white frosting to make the tan color (38 cupcakes).
Waaa-freaking-laaahhh! People will think you are ahhhmazing. And that you have too much time on your hands. And that you are probably compensating from some bad birthday party that you can’t remember from your childhood.
I also have to give a big shout out to Chris and my family for cleaning like some sociopaths, helping to decorate, and keeping my crazy in check. I only about overdosed on Lumiday to make it pleasant for everyone.
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Also, if you are really into kid birthdays and mom’s that like to stress the shit out of themselves, then please check out the ladies below.
Lindsay from Undomestic Mama is a working mom to boy twins! She lives in the Seattle area and is a big Seahawk fan. On top of being a working mom and taking care of twins, she also owns her own Etsy shop. If you ever need any kind of printables or party décor, reach out to her because she can set up a custom listing. She is well known for her amazing silhouettes. The one I ordered for Olive is my favorite print in our house. Go say hey girl hey to Lindsay HEREand be sure to find her on instagram (@undomestic_mama).
Vanessa from X-tremely V is also a working mom to a little boy. Vanessa is from Ohio and works in her husband’s office. I like Vanessa’s blog because in addition to the beauty and fashion posts, she also blogs about everyday life with her husband and son… and lot’s of pictures of yummy food! You can just tell that she is a really good mom and fun person. Head over and check out Vanessa’s page HERE and add her to your instagram (@xtremelyv).
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Alright, I’m outta here.
I’m travelling this week to Philly for work—not even on the plane and already homesick. Chris on the other hand is probably rejoicing somewhere that he doesn’t have to live to my delusional to-do list for a few days.
I still have a few sponsor spots available for March. If you are interested, email me at holly(dot)j(dot)stanfield(at)gmail(dot)com.
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