…THE PLANNING…

Me: Hey girl, how old are you?
Chula: I am two. I will be threeeee!!!
Me: Okay, what do you want for your third birthday?
Chula: I want to be a butterfly.
Me: Okay….
Chula: I want cake and candies and ice cream and presents….
Me: Okay….
Chula: I want to come and celebrate me, sing happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, then I blow the candle and eat cake.

Yes! Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I wanted. The quarter would be over, papers done, grades published, with holidays fast approaching I was in the mood to throw a party. Just the thing I wanted to do! And she gave me some thing to work on – BUTTERFLY, her recent fascination, craze, obsession, interest…. She practically had me eating me out of her hand. Except for the ‘presents’ part. This gifting and re-gifting business was eating me up. So I decided to make it a gift free birthday. IF the guests felt awkward about the gift business, suggestions were made to donate the gift amount to a charity or to their library’s giving tree and send the good will as the gift. But Chula now knows that birthdays and gifts go together. She does not care what is inside, but just gets a kick when some one hands her a gift bag. So it was decided that hubby and self buy couple of toys/books, wrap it, display them at the party and bring them back.

With the theme and guest list handed to me, I had venue, food, decoration and cake to care of. After a little research I found this early child development center close to home where they agreed to do some activity for the varied age group children who will be coming to the party. Butterfly easel painting, play dough activity, (paper cut out) butterfly hunt, followed by art activity where the kids made a garden scene with the butterflies they found in the hunt and some circle time/parachute activities for the younger children. The much older kids were to be given ownership of conducting the activities.

I had read a lot about this particular bakery where they bake a mean Guava cake. They infuse few other fruits along with Guava both in to the cake and also in to the icing. By chance I had it in another birthday party and decided Guava cake it is! I picked a butterfly cake picture from the internet and asked this bakery to pretty much copy it. So cake was done.

Food was going to be simple – order pizza, make couple of appetizers and bow tie pasta at home. I also baked some butterfly shaped cookies as return gifts.

…EXECUTION…

Planning done. Supplies bought. Cooking completed. Things packed. Guest arrived. Kids ran wild. Cake cut. Small talk made. My younger one painted every single plain sheet of paper she could get hold of. At any given point of time the older one was found jumping/smiling/running/rolling from various locations! So were the other kids.

…HIGHLIGHTS…

The one birthday I decide no gifts, our family was gifted with the best gift any one could ever wish for. As an added bonus, it was a surprise! What more can one ask for?! Few friends made an audio CD with the voices of their little ones – all wishing my Chula a happy birthday. While the party was in progress, they played it in the CD player for all of us to hear. The puzzle was for me to match the voice with the cutie pie. I spent the day after the party playing and replaying the CD, figuring out the puzzle. It was lots of fun.

There were special wishes for Chula, from you all in ‘Circle Of Happiness’ and in my comment space. Thanks a bunch guys.

Cake was A-mazing. People had thirds and fourths. At 10.00PM, I was sitting on our couch, busily licking the whipped cream from the cake board and was certain that come next morning 10.0AM, I was going to the bakery and get a 6 inch round Guava cake all for myself.

…INTERESTING…

The parents were okay with the ‘no gift’ clause. But the kids were uncomfortable. I was told that the minute they heard the words birthday party uttered, they declared, ‘Wow, I want to go. I want to take a NICE gift for Chula’. Apparently the little ones were not quite happy that there would be no gifts. They insisted that they bring something to give birthday girl and Chula received a Kit Kat, a box of cookies, plenty of birthday cards and a cute little hand painted wooden butterfly!!

…AND SOME PICTURES…

…AND RECIPES…

  • Cheese on Ritz crackers
  • This was the inspiration for the next appetizer. I shaped the rolls in to a butterfly shape. What started out as a healthy looking butterfly ended up as not so healthy and not so looking like a butterfly after I baked them and cooled them off. Also the topping was my own creation, 8 tbsp low sourcream, finely chopped green onion, finely chopped red bell pepper.
  • Bow tie pasta