Dora Party

Sadie Turns 3

For Sadie's Birthday, she had 4 requests:

1. Barbie skates-boots

2. A Dora Birthday Party

3. Purple Cupcakes

4. Her Friends to come to her party.

As soon as we realized the Saturday following her birthday was Cinco De mayo...with a Dora Party, perfect!  Time to plan, prepare and pin (on pinterest). I started a pin called, "Sadie's 3rd Birthday" and contains 22 pins.

http://pinterest.com/jenafile/sadie-s-3rd-birthday/

I was in love with the pink tea cart, but pink wasn't going to go with our bright colored theme...oh and I also couldn't find a tea cart like this one; however, my father-in-law came to the rescue and made a(n) (adorable) tea cart!  At my request, he painted the tea cart teal, and I just happen to have material that would match for the bunting.

I tried to match the cake pattern with the bunting.  Making a layered cake is a little nerve-racking! I was so afraid the top two layers were going to slide off!
We also prescooped the ice cream in cupcake liners (2 nights before the party) since this is the first step to making fried ice cream, I thought maybe I would do that...(part of my good ideas list before falling a sleep at night) when I woke up in the morning I realized that was just a really bad idea, I didn't need one more thing on my plate (or bowl, :) ) instead, yummy ice cream flavors that kids will like:
1. Cotton Candy
2. Chocolate
3. Strawberry
4. Chocolate

Cotton Candy was the most popular, but I think that is because every person who came up to get cake and ice cream I said, "the cotton candy ice cream is amazing!!"

Sadie wanted to cut the cake herself, and had been wanting to for the past two days, so in a panic I told her she could cut the cake at the party.  I was a little worried about it (but did have the "backup" cupcakes in case of a disaster).  She cut the first piece of cake and was done with that, which was fine...90 degree weather with ice cream means, not enough time to wait on a toddler to serve!!

Purple cupcakes (as requested by Sadie) they were lemon cupcakes with White Chocolate Raspberry Frosting (to die for...really!)


My mom painted a giant Dora and cacti, for the party (a Dora-fan favorite) and as I was watching Dora, I thought, if we could get a Swiper-the-Fox to put by the cake...so cute!  Thankfully I was able to talk her into making a Swiper too!


We were able to rent a bounce house through ribbit party rentals
http://www.ribitparty.com/


To make it Dora-like, we made it fun to get to the bounce house.  I had planned to make maps (rolled up in a backpack, but thought it might be lost on 3 years olds that can't read) showing:


How do we get to the bounce house?
Go through the desert
around Bubble Palace
under (or around) singing bird island

Dora!

Desert and the kid table with dollie placemats, mini pinatas and a maraca (one per kid, there is a missing bag of maracas we will probably find 6 months from now :) and sombreros on the chairs.

Closer Version of the Cacti, when looking for ideas, this one came from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.  My sister-in-law sent me a picture and I didn't think I liked it until I saw it in person at Anthropologie, and of course, they weren't for sale, so my mom and I made them (hand sewing). 

Dig for Lizards (in moon sand) also in the "desert"

Bubble Palace and Singing Bird Island

Closer Version of Singing Bird Island, Tied on with a bow, so the kids could untie them. Bubble Palace was the same way.

Bounce house

 Pinata and adult sitting/tables

I prewraped the eating utensils, for efficiency and we prepared everything to make our favorite Mexican meals: Barbacoa Beef Tacos, Southwest Chicken Tacos, and Beef Tacos.  Sadie and I made a menu showing how to make these and variations of these dishes.  We also had pinwheels and 7 layer dip (my mother-in-law made), which no party is complete without! Aubree is modeling the menu :)

The Party!

Us, didn't realize I had a smudge on my lens :(

All the kids their sombreros with Dora

Pinata time!

We did get Sadie the Barbie Skates-Boots, but realized a week before her birthday, she really wanted ice skates!

As I'm looking at 10 day forecasts, trying not to do any sort of "rain dance", crossing my fingers and praying for no rain on her party day (rain means-no bounce house :( ) Sadie says, "all I want for my birthday is Barbie Skates-Boots, and maybe it will even snow on my birthday party and I will be able to use them at my party".  Wow, didn't have a clue she meant ice skates...we got her roller skates instead :)

If Sadie wished for a wonderful party...it came true!