Part-ay!!

To celebrate Solei's 4th trip around the sun, we needed 12 rolls of streamers, about 75 pieces of paper, a mile or so of yarn, a glue stick and a roll of tape.  What a party!  I couldn't decide on a guest list and I didn't want anyone to feel left out, so Jared told me to invite everyone.  At one point he counted 41 people.  Yes, I'm insane and I always tend to bite off more than I can chew, but Solei had a ball and that was the point!

I wanted a theme but Solei kept changing her mind - by the end she was asking for a mermaid-and-unicorn-and-princess-and-fairies party, but I stuck with the original request of rainbows and the circus.  I didn't do very much, really, but I decided to do a few things as big as I could and it ended up feeling festive.

To greet our guests, I strung up some yarn with little colored paper flags along the walkway.  Paper and tape and yarn... not much, but it felt cool.

I couldn't find a stick to attach the string on, so Jared grabbed a microphone stand.  Voila!

 Cheesy yes, but I made this sign to hang out front:

 I used lots of streamers and tried to give it a circus tent-type atmosphere.  I also made lots of banners to hang about.

And what's a good circus without a trapeze act?

When the guests arrived, they decorated their own goodie bags.

Our first game was Lion Tamer - that was me.  All the kids got to jump through a "ring of fire", then it got higher and higher - like of like a reverse limbo with a hula hoop

Next we played musical chairs, which was not as successful.  Too many kids of too many ages meant little ones getting bored and wandering away from the game or back in, so we couldn't ever get the number of chairs right - there were too many or too few!  Lesson learned, and the chaos was kind of funny to watch!

Then we paused for lunch - hot dogs and brats.  It's the official party food of Wisconsin!

  

And then - oh then!!!  Cake time!!  And not just any cake.  We are blessed to know the most master of master cake masters and even though she was insanely busy this last weekend, she offered to make an extra special cake for Solei.  (Her name is Julie, and she has a blog of all her baking exploits.  Absolutely drool-worthy).  

She is an absolutely AMAZING decorator, but I wanted a very simple exterior and she complied, even though she wanted to do more.  When I went to pick it up, she insisted on adding a few flowers which were fabulous of course.

She got much better pictures with her camera - I'll post them later.  Isn't it lovely??  Solei was thrilled, especially because she is absolutely in love with Julie.

And then - BLAM-O!!!

Yes, my friends - THAT is a rainbow cake!!!  6 insanely delicious layers of super awesome magical rainbow cake!!!! 

It was insanely labor-intensive - she had to freeze up each layer before adding them so it would be structurally sound.    It was delicious and all around wonderful!

Another thing that made cake time super awesome was this idea I saw a while back in a magazine.  Instead of serving the ice cream right there, I scooped some up before-hand and put it in foil baking cups and left them in the freezer until they were needed.  

It made the whole serving process go much faster (since there was quite the hungry crowd) and another side benefit was that it didn't melt all over the plate and get the cake all soggy.

Then, presents!  Unfortunately, Solei going through that frustrating awkward stage where every time I try to take a picture, she gives me this awful fake grimace/painful smile and looks everywhere but at the camera, so I didn't get any really awesome pictures of the birthday girl.  But as she opened presents, I did manage to capture a genuine look of joy:

It was a ball and we all had a lovely time.  Today in Primary I abused my role as the music director and made everyone sing the birthday song to her twice.  She beamed and danced the entire time.  I'm amazed at how much she has learned in her short 4 years on this earth, and how wonderful our lives are because she is in it.  Happy birthday, sunshine!!!