Li'l Miss M Turns 2!

While in Utah last week, we threw Madeleine a little birthday party. It was absolutely adorable (yes, I did have my doubts the entire planning and prepping time). It was Minnie Mouse themed since she's a little obsessed. She had a great time playing with the balloons and all of her cousins that came.

I kept it pretty simple since I was planning it from 2,000 miles away and it turned out much better than I had expected (with the exception of the damn cupcakes and icing). I did favor bags for the kids and put large Minnie Mouse bows on the bags. They were stuffed with bubbles and party blowers and stickers and who knows what else. I also made favors for the adults, which, I swear, if I ever get that bug up my butt again - someone shoot me. I spent two weekends making two Mickey Mouse head chocolates at a time. I had to improvise for the molds and it took forever (I used the container that came with cookie cutters I bought). Then, because I love making myself absolutely miserable, I took red and white chocolate and painted bows on some of them. Not doing it again. Ever. But they sure were cute.

When I got to Utah, I made the cake and cupcakes. And here's the cupcake story: Three different boxes of cake mixes. Each with different high altitude instructions. I don't LIVE in high altitude. My default is not high altitude. The first box I did, I made as the cake, it didn't have any "special instructions." It was fine. The second box... Well, let's just say - I don't live in high altitude! I don't think to double check anymore. Needless to say, they were a little, well ... flat. Definitely fixed it for the third batch. Which, of course, exploded over the edges as opposed to wilted to nothing like the broken batch. The broken batch tasted just fine, just a little on the small side. They were for kids. Who cares? (Well, I did but I got over it given it was almost midnight as it was.)

The next day was the frosting. I had tried the recipe once before and it turned out okay, I just didn't get the color right. I learned how to fix that. So I did. Perfect shade of red. But! For whatever reason, there was no thickness to the frosting. It wouldn't thicken up to frost anything. No idea what I did wrong so I just gave in and used it for the cupcakes, knowing I was going to be really grumpy with it. It tasted fine, was just really runny. So I caved and bought icing to use for the cake. Which, if I may say so myself (and I *never* do), it was DAMN cute! I loved it.

We did a cheese and cracker tray with the Mickey Mouse shaped cheese. My sister made a fruit basket and we had a veggie tray. We did red punch to go along with the "red/black/white" thing and, as I did last year, we completely forgot about the ice cream til after everyone had eaten.

Madeleine got to spend time playing with a bunch of her cousins and had a ton of sugar to keep her going. She had a ball. Which was the whole point to begin with. It wasn’t stress-free but it was a very laid-back, easy party and she had tons of fun. So YAE!