Waiting For Kai: Birthday Party

Kai's second birthday party was a lot of fun and we were so happy to celebrate the occasion with so many of his favorite people. We didn't really have a theme for the party, but we used choo choo train invitations and favors, and made sure we used Kai's favorite color orange wherever we could. As Mark was setting up the backyard in the morning, it started raining and we thought we'd have to move the party inside, but luckily it was just a passing shower and the real rain didn't come until later in the afternoon, well after the party. And the weather was warm enough that the kids could enjoy the water table and sprinklers, but not too hot for the moon bounce.

The cake presented me with a small problem because Kai doesn't really like cake, and he especially doesn't like frosting -- go figure. But he does love jello and whipped cream, so I made a jello poke cake and cupcakes, and made whipped cream for the frosting. I was super relieved that he liked it because it would've totally bummed me out if he didn't like his own birthday cake. I put a train across the top of the cake and he was so excited to see it that he tried to climb up on top of his toy kitchen to get onto the table!

I made little choo choo train cookies as favors for all the kids, which took me way longer than I expected, but still turned out okay considering it was my first fairly serious attempt at decorating with royal icing. It was a three-day process: I made the dough Wednesday night, baked the cookies Thursday night, and frosted them all on Friday. Thank goodness I had the foresight to do it that way, because if I had tried to do it all on Friday I would have never finished (and probably would have been really grumpy). Yes, I probably could have bought train cookies, but I really wanted to make them myself for Kai and his friends.

There were about 30 people at the party, including 10 kids, and we really enjoyed sharing the special day with everyone! Kai didn't want to participate in the outdoor activities, but loved playing with play-doh inside with his friends. He also really liked the cake part of the party. I'm pretty sure one of the other kids ended up blowing out his candles, but whatever! After the party, and after Kai took a good long nap, he opened his presents and received many wonderful and thoughtful gifts from his friends and family, all obviously picked out with Kai in mind -- lots of books, puzzles, trucks and trains. It was a wonderful and memorable day!