The Flop

A mother's guilt knows no bounds . . .

Natalie's birthday was over 2 months ago.

I have been feeling guilty about not ever getting a friend birthday party together for her for that entire time. I kept putting it off, I just didn't have the energy on top of all the other stuff I was doing at the time. But things never slowed down, so I finally just decided we better do it anyway.

I decided to make it easy on myself and just have Natalie invite her two closest friends that live right by us. That was the plan. We decided we'd do a cute little princess tea party with her two buddies. But then I got to worrying that some of her other friends might hear about it and feel bad. I didn't want any of her cute friends to feel bad. Plus it would be fun for her to have 1 or 2 more friends come too. But it didn't stop there . . .

This pattern continued until we got to 11 little girls and I finally HAD to stop. Why do I do this to myself? But then on the other hand, I'd rather have a little chaos than be the one to make one of Natalie's sweet, little friends feel bad. So we celebrated Natalie's birthday party with lots of friends in June! It was a little embarrassing when people asked when her real birthday was. Oh well. (o:

Because Natalie had to wait so long, I wanted to really make it worth her while.

I have a darling book called "Hello Cupcake" with incredible cupcake recipes.

I have been wanting to try making something from the book and wanted Natalie to feel extra special, so when she was very excited about these cute princesses, I was happy to make them for her. Aren't they darling? Yeah, just wait . . .

It was, not surprisingly, a pretty complicated process. The biggest pain was rolling out these gumdrops into sheets so I could cut them into the dress for the princess. It took over an hour and Vern* had to make an emergency gumdrop trip to Winco because, silly me!, I didn't get enough and thought I could make these babies the night before the party. Ha! I got as far as rolling out the "fabric" for the dresses (which turned out to be not quite big enough circles), stacking the little cupcakes on the big cupcakes for the body, and getting the cookie heads "glued" to the pretzel sticks. I ran out of steam around 11:30 p.m. and went to bed.

I rolled out 12 of these gumdrop sheets.

Then the day of the party arrived. We had a BUSY day - swimming lessons all morning, then we rushed to the library for a fun show I registered the girls for. Oh how I wish my camera battery hadn't died. It was a show by a cute clown lady, I think she called herself Madame Pearl. She was so much fun and my girls could not get enough of her. Sarah got to go up and help her juggle and all three girls participated in all her funny games and tricks at the end. It will be one of those few memories I didn't capture with pictures. (except on my cell phone - but I can't remember how to get them off.)

Anyway, we had a lovely day, but after Madame Pearl, it was time to get down to business! We had 2 1/2 hours to prepare for the princess tea party. I went into insane mode - taking tables and chairs out to the yard, pruning back the apple and Asian pear tree branches, moving the tables back and forth, figuring out what to do with a dead bird I found by the gate everyone would be entering, decorating, running to pick up 2 dozen balloons - [where one of the bunches came undone and started blowing all over the place in the gusty winds we had that day - I must have looked ridiculous and pathetic trying to wrangle 24 balloons in the back of my van in the tornado winds (not really, but that makes it funnier) - because two nice ladies ran over to help. By the time we got them all in, there were only 2 casualties. Angela was the only who noticed two of the balloons flying off into space.], getting the "tea" lemonade and food ready, gathering items needed for our craft and activities, ever so sweetly telling the girls to help out, get in their princess clothes and PLEASE stop fighting, wishing I had asked someone to help since I knew Tim* wouldn't be able to get home early, etc. etc. etc. Oh and I almost forgot to mention Angela's sudden, totally irrational fear of the wind that kept gusting and blowing the balloons and table clothes off the tables. She was hysterical. In all that insanity, I also planned to finish the princess cupcakes too. What in the heck was I thinking? I could see that wasn't going to happen.

So although I felt horrible, I had to explain to Natalie that we'd have to finish the **&@#, I mean, adorable cupcakes later and maybe take them around to her friends. She was such a sweetheart about it. In fact, she was just so excited about the tea party part, she didn't seem to care at all. Luckily, I had extra mini cupcakes that we were able to serve for her "birthday cake" and all the girls were just fine with those because we had so much other food. And I stressed over these so much because why????

After the party on Wednesday, I was too exhausted to even think about finishing those darn cupcakes. The next day was another busy day and the cupcake bodies sat waiting again. Finally on Sunday, I decided it was getting ridiculous. I didn't want to throw them away and waste all the work I'd already done. I left out a few details just so I could get them done, but this is how they turned out. Kind of like comparing the Mona Lisa to a preschooler's art . . .

He He. Well, I tried.

The way too short dresses are my favorite part. (eyes rolling)

The cutest part, however, was that the girls thought they were absolutely magical.

They thought the princesses (and king for daddy) turned out amazing!

They relished each stale bite of cupcake and each chew of the sticky gumdrop dresses.

I am grateful for very forgiving daughters who think that my pathetic attempts to do amazing things for them are . . . well, amazing. That is not always the case, but this time it was.

By the way, these did not get passed out to the honored guests from the tea party. I have too much pride to take stale, funny looking cupcakes around to 5 and 6 year olds. (Even though I'm sure they would have thought they were "amazing" too. (o: and their mom's probably would have gotten a good laugh!)