Baking party

  We had Hannah's 9th birthday party over the weekend.  She had all sorts of ideas of what she wanted to do and the themes and games and food.  We landed on a baking party with a scavenger hunt and dance party.  Thankfully, she let me craft up the decor.  Who knows what I'm going to do with a lavender and white awning, but it sure looked great!

  She decorated her own invites with little stamps I made.  In all of my excitement getting these out, I made a typo.  Oops!  But at least I put the location of the party on this invite!

 

  I did a lot of prep on saturday before Mike and I went to the Husky game in Berkeley.  I also skipped church on sunday to get the cupcakes made, calzone dough made, table set, and the house tidied up.  I had time to take pictures beforehand too!  Well, just of the cupcake decorating table.  Those perfectly curated dessert tables at parties...they take a lot of time and there is sacrifice involved.  Don't be fooled by those that make it look like they do it all, people!

I bought waaaayyyyy too much candy, but surprisingly it was mostly all used.  Good thing!

  First up, rolling out dough for calzones.  It was mostly all her friends from school and a couple from church.  I was reminded of why we didn't invite the younger children when all of Hannah's siblings were crying and/or throwing a fit about how their dough was too sticky or not rolling into a perfect circle, etc.  Oy vey.

  Also, I know this is super blur.  I am the class photographer for Hannah's class.  Not so much the picture taker as the organizer, but there are some strict rules regarding posting other kids online without permission.  It was just a great reminder that I need to ask parents before I post.  Even though this was not a school function.  So there will be a couple more.

  Thank goodness for my dad who was manning the oven and Mike who was manning the calzone assembly.  While the calzones baked, they decorated cupcakes.  And by decorate, I mean that they were testing the structural integrity of the cupcake.  How much frosting and candy can I possibly put on top of this cupcake?  Also, must give a shout out to Mike who helped me finish up the bias tape on many of the aprons.  It was kind of a last minute idea I had.  I happened to have some pieces of cut canvas that could easily be made into aprons and after a quick search on Amazon I knew I could get the bias tape in time to sew them up!

Waiting patiently!

 And then we had a surprise dance party that Hannah wanted to do SO bad, but she hardly danced!  She is funny.

  The parents came walking up to our driveway to pick up their kids with the lights in the garage off, the disco ball flashing, and the music blaring.  Haha!  Welcome to a Soetaert partayyyy!

  I think she had fun, but she was TIRED afterward.  Wowee.  Combo of the time switch, Gung Gung taking her to the park all of the time, and excitement from her party.  I was super tired too.  Fall is such a busy time for me personally.  From the time school started just under 3 months ago, we have had 3 of our own kids' birthdays and parties, multiple visitors, Halloween (I gotta get over making the kids their costumes!), and my big push to get my calendar finished and ready for sale.  My precious nap time dedicated to all of the above left me hardly any time for myself.  Just around the corner, Thanksgiving and then Christmas.  Whew!  Thank goodness ALL of the former is done.  I am ready to take a breather, sip some tea, and flip through magazines.  Excuse me while I do that.

Happy Monday!