The Golden Birthday

I think that's what they call it. Today, on June 7th, Mayah turned 7, and she'd also like me to add that she lost her 7th tooth the night before her birthday. Triple 7's!! I think that's a sign for good luck right? The good luck has already kicked in, too. She won a birthday party to the "Amazing Pizza Machine" (a $200 value) which was announced on Action 3 news, when they said the winner was "Mia R." Mayah was yelling at the T.V "IT'S MAYAH!" She wanted me to call the station and tell them to re-announce it correctly. I told her that anyone who knows how to read would have seen it on the T.V screen and known that they said it wrong. Too bad I didn't know she was going to win that before I planned the party we had today. It would have saved myself and my poor husband a lot of stress. Clint had to deal with all my freak outs for the last week during all the preparations. I am lucky to have such a good guy to put up with me.

Mayah had requested to have a cooking party. At the time I thought, oh it will be so fun to make all the little girls cute aprons with the sewing machine that I got for my birthday. For the first time I actually started something a few weeks before it needed to be done and it was a good thing, too. It was a good learning opportunity because of all the errors I had to re-do on those aprons. But in the end they turned out great, and were even finished on time.


Thanks to my husband (who has learned from the best how to be a great party host), the party was a hit and all of Mayah's little friends had a BLAST! We started out by having them decorate their own place mats and then roll out pizza dough and add their own toppings.

While the pizzas were in the oven, we played a few games and started on dessert. The first game was like a dry version of bobbing for apples, only with doughnuts on strings hanging from the ceiling. The next was a blind tasting contest where they had to identify raisins, m&m's, pickles and surprisingly the hardest of all--ketchup--just from taste. Apparently, they've only ever tasted ketchup on things like hamburgers, french fries and eggs...because they had guesses such as pickle juice, vinegar, etc... Then the girls made cupcakes that resembled flower pots, using ice cream cones, oreos, frosting and green coconut shavings. They also made "sherbet the frogs" using lime sherbet, gummy candies for legs, and junior mints for eyes. Before everyone left, we cut mayah's birthday apron cake and opened gifts.

They all took home lime green whisks stuffed with candy, chef hats, home-sewn aprons, miniature rolling pins, self-decorated place mats, and the cutest recipe books, which my sister-in-law Melissa helped design. On their way out, they all stopped to run around in the yard with our puppy Rhet and laugh at him licking Ava's face.

After all of the work, stress and money we spent on this party, I learned that I could actually pull something like this off, but I might not choose to do it again--at least not any time soon. I wonder if that hassle-free party at the Pizza Machine will still be usable for next year's birthday...??