Happy Birthday, Monkey!

     Okay so I'm a slacker.  I was supposed to post this on Monkey's birthday, but then my computer died.  Thankfully my awesome brother-in-law is a computer genius, and he revived my sweet Mac.  He also changed my hard drive icon to a zombie in honor of it's reanimation.  Last Monday was my daughter's 4th birthday, and I am amazed at how quickly the time is flying by.  She will be starting school in a little over a year, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.  I get teary eyed at the thought of her in a cute little school uniform with her backpack on her back.  I'm probably going to be one of those moms who cries the first day of school.  Scratch that "probably", I cried just this weekend at the sight of her wearing a bit of eyeshadow for the first time.  My husband thinks it's funny to bring up all the ways she'll grow in the coming years, just to see if he can get me to go all weepy again.  Jerk!

     Thankfully, she's not too big for themed parties yet, because I get a kick out of planning them for her.  Last Saturday we celebrated her birthday with a Princess Party, and she had a blast.  Of course I want to share some of the goodies.  First, the invites.  I had my awesome sister take a few shots of Monkey at the local park back home, and then I used Shutterfly to upload them and turn them into cute invitations. I can't figure out how to load the link to the finished project, but here's the picture she took.

Getting ready for the party

     I also had fun thinking of princess-themed snacks this year, and of course Pinterest helped a ton.  First and foremost, there's the cake:

     It may not be professional-looking, but I'm proud of it.  I found a cool tutorial on how to use a coloring sheet to create a chocolate mold of whatever image you want, and I used it to make each of the princesses you see on the top of the cake.  Monkey enjoyed eating the rejects.

Next I made Snow White's Caramel Apples, and although they tasted great they were not photogenic.  They were simple and yummy, though, so here's what you'll need:

1 (14 oz) package caramel
2 TBS milk
Granny Smith apples, sliced in half and cored

Pour caramel and milk into a medium sized bowl, melt in the microwave for 1 minute.  Stir.  Microwave for another minute.  Stir and pour into cored apples.  Let set, then slice and serve.

     Next, representing my favorite princess, I made Belle's Roses:

You'll need:
strawberries
White chocolate
pink food coloring
red icing
kabob or lollipop sticks

Wash strawberries, and skewer them onto the kabob/lollipop sticks.  Melt the white chocolate in the microwave according to package directions, add a few drops of pink food coloring.  Dip strawberries into chocolate, covering up to the white portion, and let set.  Once the chocolate is set, using the red icing, draw outlines of the roses onto the layer of chocolate.  Let set then serve.

   Representing Cinderella, we had Fairy Godmother's Magic Wands:

You'll need:
White chocolate
Pretzel rods
Sprinkles

Melt white chocolate in microwave according to package directions.  Dip pretzels in chocolate.  Decorate with sprinkles and let dry.

   We even had an assortment of sugar cookies shaped into Enchanted Castles, Tiaras, and Cinderella's Glass Slippers.  These were topped with an almond powdered sugar icing dyed the various pastel colors.

For drink, we enjoyed refreshing Princess Punch and my homemade sweet tea:

For the punch you'll need:
2 qrts pink lemonade
2 qrts rasberry sherbet
2 L lemon-lime soda

Add all ingredients to bowl and serve.

For the Sweet Tea:
   Clip 3 large Community tea bags (or 6 small bags) to the side of a gallon-sized pitcher.  Boil water and add to the pitcher until the pitcher is nearly full.  Let it steep for about an hour.  Remove and discard bags.  Add 3 cups of sugar.  Stir and enjoy :-)

Even our chips and dip and various trays had a nod to a certain princess movie.

"Chip"s and Dip

"Tiana's Tempting Trays"

Ariel's "Dinglehoppers"

     All-in-all it was a very good party, and of course Monkey racked up on gifts.

     I'm thinking I'll be going through her toy box and purging next time she's not looking.  Now it's time to go clean out my Birthday Party board on Pinterest until Monkey picks the theme for next year.

*Thank you to my awesome sister for taking the pictures and helping set everything up for the party!*