For his birthday, Jett wanted a bird like Cruise's, but blue. So we set off to find one and since we had all the supplies already, getting another bird was not that big of a deal. Parakeets are only around $20, so it wasn't a problem. He picked a pretty blue one from Animal Ark and decided he didn't want its wings clipped. (Of course, once we tried to get him out of his cage, we learned quickly that you need to clip them, otherwise you can't hand train them. So I did the honors.) He chose to name him Blueberry. His personality is so different from Cupcake's. Cupcake is a little wary of humans, she doesn't like to be held very much and bites a lot. Blueberry is very laid back, he actually doesn't mind being held and handled, and he doesn't bite. We kept him in his cage for about week before taking him out, and then transferred him to the large cage with Cupcake after 3 weeks. Immediately Cupcake took to him and her behavior changed for the better. She is more willing to be handled (still not her favorite thing) and definitely doesn't bite much anymore. They always want to be together now. It's kind of cute actually.
This year, Jett wanted a chef themed birthday party. The thought of that sounded exhausting, so I dug around and found that Harmons will do parties...for $300. So...that wasn't an option. I decided I just needed to suck it up and make it a great home party.
Jett designed the general idea for his cake. He wanted an apron on top and cooking utensils around it. I did a white cake with chocolate in between layers and covered in blue dyed buttercream frosting. The apron was easy since all I had to do was make the fondant and cut it out. I thought I'd cut corners and not make royal icing for the writing, instead I melted chocolate chips and used that. Chocolate is definitely not as easy to write with than actual icing. Now I know. But Jett didn't seem to mind that it was messy. The rolling pin was a bunch of mini cakes put together with frosting and a wood dowel down the middle, which also helped with the handles. That was covered in brown fondant. The spatula I used black and white fondant, and covered in melted chocolate chips. The measuring cup was a mini cake covered in fondant and topped with brown sugar to make it look like it was filled. It was actually kind of fun making all the little cooking tools, even though that rolling pin was a pain. Jett really liked how it turned out.
We had his party on the 17th after school. Dave helped me decorate and get it all ready. I couldn't have done that party without him. There were so many moving parts and SO. MANY. BOYS. I had them all decorate their own aprons with fabric markers when they arrived. Then they came into the kitchen and rolled out their dough and made their pizzas. I used Rhodes dough and it was seriously perfect. There was a recipe on the website for mini pizzas and I had never tried it before. They were surprisingly amazing and everyone loved making their own.
While they waited for their pizzas to cook, we had a little tasting game where we had them close their eyes and we'd hand them something to eat and they had to guess what it was. We had things like cauliflower (pretty much everyone hated that one), dried mangoes, shrimp, tortilla chips, etc. Once the pizzas were done, they all got to eat them and I tried my hardest to get them to eat a salad. I think only 4 kids ate salads and 3 of those were mine.
After they ate, they got to decorate cookies. This was probably the biggest failure of the entire party. I had made the frostings to thick and should've put them in bowls instead of bags, so we were having a lot of issues and the kids had that frosting piled high. So, not the biggest win of the night, but they still enjoyed it.
Then we ate the cake and opened presents. Jett got some great gifts, but props to the awesome mom who gifted him dessert mixes, frosting, and sprinkles.
Saturday was the 18th, Jett's actual birthday. We went out for lunch to Noodles & Co. and then stopped by the Ybarras where they gave him his birthday presents: a quesadilla maker and an apron with "Chef Jett" stitched into it that Mom had done herself. He absolutely loved the quesadilla maker, but that apron was probably one of his most favorite gifts he had received. He actually chose to wear it to his next cooking class instead of wearing their aprons.
We were supposed to have a family party on Sunday, the 19th, but Miles got a fever overnight and we had to cancel. Jett was pretty sad about it and requested Dave take him up to the mountains to hike around. So Dave took he and Cruise up to the canyon while I stayed home with poor sick Miles. But I think Jett got plenty of birthday and got pretty spoiled.
Still can't believe he's 8.
1 comment:
What a great party (and posting)!
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