Pure Joy

We just got back from a long holiday weekend at the beach. Is there any better place to capture the pure joy of summer?

All pics by Dave. Amazing.

Girliest Party Ever

This is the last of the Kara Birthday posts, I swear. But I just had to write about her awesome party with her friends. I am not entirely sure why it happened, but I became quite invested in this party being super cool, and somewhere in the planning process, I went completely overboard. I have two theories as to why this happened. 1. The thought of eight little girls who are bored or unhappy at my kid's party inspires serious levels of anxiety. (Imagine the more terrifying play date of all time.) 2. Whatever ambivalence I may have about being a stay at home mom, I am certain that I want to be the mom who gives her kids great birthday parties. It is like showing off your mommy muscles to plan and execute an elaborate two hour play date.

Reflecting on the party, I can say without reservation that it rocked.

The first key to our success was that I hired my niece, Alex, and her friend, Sierra, to come an be my party helpers. Their primary job was to play games with the girls and supervise the free play in our yard. They were amazing. Negotiating Middle East peace has nothing on getting eight little girls to play the same game at the same time. Alex and Sierra were firm and in control, but also kind and warm and funny. Not to get too deep, but in addition to helping me out, they were wonderful examples of how to be a teenage girl who is smart without being a smart ass, cool without being snotty, funny without being sarcastic.

Negotiating

Can't you just tell that Alex is the sweetest teenager ever?

Big girls and little girls playing tag

The second key to our success was the Oriental Trading Company. If you are planning a kid party of any kind, you must visit this site. It is a veritable treasure trove of party favors. I bought a ton of craft supplies: ceramic watering cans to decorate, stickers, make your own pinwheels, hibiscus hair clips, nylon butterflies and dragonflies to color, markers, more stickers - and the girls just crafted it up for over an hour. They were so quiet and focused it was kind of creepy. Made me wonder if those stickers had some magical tranquilizing power.

I may have gone a little nuts, but the party was awesome. I heard more than one girl actually say, "Kara, your party is so cool" which resulted in an inappropriately huge ego boost for me. I have issues, I know. But the best part was that Kara was just brimming over with joy the whole day. Even after complete present overload, she was a peach.

Happy Birthday, Kara!

My darling 6 year old girl.

Last week we celebrated Kara's birthday, again, with a big family dinner. She originally wanted to have mac and cheese, Kraft not homemade, but was amenable to a menu alteration in light of the fact that guests were coming too. So Kara went with her second favorite dinner, rotisserie chicken, sweet potatoes, asparagus, cranberry sauce. It was awesome.

With a June birthday, Kara often has strawberry shortcake for her birthday dinner dessert. This year we decided to mix it up and make this Strawberry Cake recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod. My friend Katie introduced us to this amazing dessert when she brought it to a dinner a few weeks ago. I generally don't like cooked berries, but this cake manages to sweeten the strawberries without turning them to unappealing mushy blobs.We served it up with fresh pink whipped cream. Love those gel food colors.

PS: Not for nothing, spring strawberries are one of the best illustrations that locally grown food just plain tastes better. What goes better with birthday cake than a side of food politics?

Cupcake Catastophe

This is the week of Kara's birthday - the big 6. By our count, she will get to celebrate her big day four times: at the beach with Dave's family, at school with her class, at our house for our traditional family birthday dinner and at her birthday party with her girls this weekend. I am exhausted just writing about all that frolicking. Though this all could seem a little excessive, I am apt to shrug off those concerns. If you can't totally embrace the joy of birthdays as a six year old, I don't know when you can.

I will admit that one of my favorite parts about celebrating Kara's birthday is making the classroom cupcakes together. As I have mentioned before, I love box cake mix, so this is the perfect excuse to purchase and then sample some of Betty Crocker's finest. I also love the icing in a can. I know that objectively speaking it is a pretty nasty concoction of oil and high fructose corn syrup, but it tastes great and is super easy to use on cupcakes. (Box cake and icing exist in a special loophole of my basic philosophy that we should eat locally, sustainably produced whole foods. I embrace my hypocrisy on this one.)

Yesterday while Kara was at school, Jamie and I made the cupcakes in anticipation of decorating them after school. After applying a thick layer of icing, Kara got busy decorating each individual cupcake with a rainbow of sprinkles. It was darling and those cupcakes looked lovely.

All was well until we went out for t-ball after dinner. I "hid" the cupcakes on the top of the microwave which is about 5 feet off the ground. I was under the assumption that this would prevent our dessert-loving mutt from eating them. Bailey, the mutt in question, has quite a tradition of gobbling sweets off the counter, so we are pretty well trained to keep them out of harms way. Imagine my shock when Dave called to "mentally prepare" me for what he found when he got home. Bailey didn't eat all the cupcakes - turns out her limit is 15. Sometimes I wonder why we have pets at all.

Anyway...I ran out to the store for more Betty Crocker, whipped up another two dozen cakes, and this morning Kara decorated them all over again. All in all, we handled the cupcake incident with uncharacteristic grace and calm. Kara wisely commented, "I am bummed Bailey ate my cupcakes, mom, but at least we get to make them together again." Smartest six year old ever.