Horton Party

For a final wrap up of T's birthday party, I thought I'd share how I fit the theme together.  From my last two posts, you probably realize that we created T's party theme around her favorite movie, Horton Hears a Who.  If you haven't seen this animated film of the Dr. Seuss classic brought to life, you need to.  If you watch it about 50-60 times, you might start catching up with us!  Every time we watch it though, I pick up on something new and I crack up laughing.  Vlad gets me every time (the vulture, not the bunny who makes cookies), "Hear come the water slides!".  Hmm, maybe its because his accent reminds me of my mentor...  Anyways, I wanted to plan T's party around this movie without actually making it too cutesy, a touch of sophistication you might say.  OK, maybe not.  Anyways, here are the decor, craft, and food details to show how I brought this movie into our house.

Maybe I'm a romantic, but I still love a paper invite.  They set the tone for any event.  I think traditional mail is a thoughtful way to go.  Really, who doesn't like a nice little envelope amidst the bills and junk mail, all vying for your hard earned cash?!  Anyways, I designed this invitation and hand delivered them to T's friends that were invited.  For efficiency, we FB invited our adult friends at the suggestion of my B.

If you haven't yet, check out this post about the cake we had made for the party!  In addition, I tried my hand at making clover-like cake pops.  If you squint and turn your head sideways, you can see them in the picture above.  I dipped the sticks in green dye left over from our Easter egg dyeing extravaganza, made double chocolate cake pops, dipped in pink melting chocolate and sprinkled pink sugar crystals to give them some texture.  My well thought out plan was harder to execute than I expected, but cake pops are very forgiving in that they always taste delicious!  So, while they may not be as pretty as I had hoped, they tasted great!

For the decor, I embraced the clover idea and made pink and orange poms following this tutorial.  I should say that int he past, I haven't had much luck trying to make these.  The paper rips, it doesn't fluff, etc.  This time, the how-to instructions finally clicked.  In the past, I had been twisting the middle of the folded tissue which made it impossible to separate and fluff.  Duh!  So, after this epiphany, I spent many evening hours (when I wasn't nursing!) folding and fluffing poms of all different sizes.  The larger ones I hung in the windows or from the ceiling fan over the dining room table.  I twisted green pipe cleaners onto the smaller ones and placed them in vases.

For the craft/favor, I had the kids decorate flower pots and plant clover seeds. I purchased these pots from Oriental Trading, along with foam flowers and pipe cleaners.  From Amazon, I got red clover seeds.  I thought this was a great activity for the kids, especially with Earth Day just around the corner!

So, that's it!  Food, decor, and crafts to bring the Horton movie into our home for T's birthday.  I know she had a blast since she burst out crying when her friends left!  So, to round out our afternoon, we watched... you guessed it... Horton!

Horton Cake

So how about that cake!  If you read this post (Miss T's Birthday Party), you saw that we had an amazing cake made for us following the Horton theme.

It was a two-tiered (6 and 9 inch round) vanilla cake.  As a surprise though, the cake was tinted so that each slice has a swirl of pink, orange, and teal!  The second tier had clovers and T's name in fondant.  Horton decorated the bottom layer while JoJo topped it all off.

As soon as it was placed in front of her, she started yelling, "Horton, Horton!".

      

I think this face says it all!

As you can see, all the kids loved it (as well as the adults!).

So where did we get our cake?  T's daycare teacher has a cousin whose hobby is making beautiful cakes.  Hobby?!  I'd say she has a future in cake design and I hope to see her on the Food Network in a cake challenge!  If you live in our area and are interested in her cakes, here is her website: http://www.manilena.com/  If you do check her out, let her know I sent ya!

Miss T's Birthday Party

Miss T's birthday party was a huge success!  We had a good crowd gathered, yummy food, and an amazing cake (more on that in another post!). T had such a great time that she literally cried when her friends left!  Presented below is a photo essay of her birthday.  Check back for posts about decorations, crafts, and that amazing cake!