Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Carolina turns 6!!!!

It is still unbelievable to me.  My girlie is 6?!?!  How is that possible?????  I think every momma asks the same thing.  Time just absolutely flies by; and the older they get, the faster time goes (...or is it the older I get?!?!)

Carolina has been talking about having a birthday party with her class for about a year now.  It started last year when we were in the States and celebrated with her cousins.  She began asking if she could have a party for her friends when we got back to Spain.  Well, a year ago, it wasn't such a big deal, and I figured she would forget about it or at least that it was a passing thought.  No.  We kept hearing about this party she was planning (and inviting her friends to... MONTHS before her birthday!)  So when we hit August and she was still talking about this party, I told Wes we had to decide what we were going to do.

Honestly, we don't usually do big parties like that for the kids for a number of reasons.  One being that when you do a party here in Spain, you aren't just inviting 5 of their good friends... you are inviting all 25 kids in the class.  The second reason being that we have 4 kids; and usually if you start it for one kid, you usually have to be pretty fair across the board.  Well, that's not really been in the budget. :)  So we've always done something special for the kids to bring into school, and then we always do really fun days for the kids just with our family... and of course, the cake is always a really big deal. :) 

Maybe it has something to do with this little girl's sweet, unassuming innocence... or maybe it's her bubbling personality... or the fact that she's the only girl... or maybe that she's the youngest???? ... I'm really not sure; but 2 weeks ago, I found myself planning a class birthday party for Carolina's 6th birthday.

It took a lot of planning, and I really had no idea exactly what I was doing.  In Cáceres, most people rent one of those fun house places, with the ball pits and the blow-up obstacle courses.  The parents pay per child attending, and there are people on staff to watch and entertain the kids.  We never did it... it was too expensive.  But after this party, I now truly see the benefit of that!!  Here, we have found that most of the families host the parties in a public park.  It's cheap enough... and there's a place for the kids to play, so it makes sense, right??  Yeah, we forgot how unruly a group of Spanish kids can be. :)

I did all my planning, and had everything pretty much ready... I just needed to decorate the cake, frost the cupcakes and make the sandwiches the day of the party.  It's SO hot and humid here still (and our AC is nothing like in the States!) so I wanted to wait to do the frosting until the day of the party.  I thought I'd done well.  The party wasn't until 6, and I was planning on heading to the park around 5 to make sure we got a table.  I should have had plenty of time to get it all done.  But... as always, nothing went according to plan. ;)

Carolina wanted a cake with the theme from the movie "Frozen."  Thanks to Pinterest and lots of advice from my best friend Lara, I felt like I had the cake under control.  We are also now in a big city, so I could find extra stuff that I never could find before... like Marshmallows and fondant! :)  Well, the cake that I had decided on had shards of ice sticking up out of it, which had to be made (not bought.)  I decided I would make the "rock candy" before hand, so that I could just assemble the cake when I needed to.  Of course, when I pulled out my candy thermometer, the glass was broken.  Great.  I needed to get this puddle of sugar to hard crack stage... and now I had to do it without a thermometer! I googled how to distinguish 'hard crack' stage without a thermometer and got lots of advice.  It was my first time making candy like this, so I had no idea what I was doing.  It took me 2 tries, and I thought that was pretty good. :)  The first batch actually came out perfectly, but the color turned green.  The next batch, I waited until I was done boiling it and then put the food coloring in.  It seemed perfect.

...and I managed to get a pic of the cake before we left, thank goodness!
Well, when I went to assemble the cake, it looked perfect at first; but within 40 minutes of sitting out, all those shards melted!!... they were drooping over.  Apparently, I'd only gotten to "soft crack" stage, and not "hard crack."  Yikes!  So... I spent the whole morning making another batch of rock candy! I was still working on the cake when the kids got home from school.  Total disaster! :)  ... but I finally got the cake put together.

I had set out everything we needed to take to the park with us... including the new cupcake holder that I'd found at 50% off! :)  I specifically left it on the table (instead of in the pile I had by the door) so that it wouldn't get broken or bent.  Well, of course, boys being boys... they started goofing off and knocked it off the table. Yes, it broke.  Of course.  Wes fixed it the best he could, and we all went on with the preparations.  Craziness!  I learned a long time ago that this is just part of everyday life with boys, and that I need to be more concerned with their hearts than the broken things.  That said, I was still pretty stressed! :)

We got everything packed into the car and went on our way.  The park is in the pueblo where the younger two kids go to school, so we had to take a terrible back road (really the only road that goes there.)  I never realized how bumpy it was!  I was holding the cake in my hands and the top layer just started slipping off the bottom... and there was nothing I could do about it!  Shrieking, I asked Wes to pull over so I could put it back together before it completely fell in my lap!  Literally, the road we were on is so narrow (sometimes you can't fit two cars on the road), so there was no room to pull over.  When he finally got off that horrible road, he pulled over and i just pushed the top layer back on top of the bottom... which, of course, scraped off all the icing from the middle and made it look like a waterfall. haha... oh, well.  At least I took a picture at home, right??? :)
Can you see the waterfall in the front? ;)... could have been a lot worse, I guess.

Playing while setting up!

We arrived at the park, and Wes left to go pick up ice and Carolina's present (a bike!), while the kids and I set up.  It was SO windy that I had to tape the table cloth down... and I was worried that cupcake holder (which was bent and not completely stable) would blow over... so, in the end, I didn't even end up putting the cupcakes on it.  It turned out to be a good idea, though... once those kids got there, they touched/took off every little decoration on the cake.  I can't imagine if I'd put the cupcakes out!! :)

Carolina and Diana
Pin the nose on Olaf was a big hit

jumping rope!

Our party favors were goodie bags: "Do you want to build a snowman" themed and filled with everything needed to build Olaf!  Everyone loved them... and as you can see, some sat down right then to build Olaf... and then eat him. :)

I did my best to blend two cultures.  It was interesting mix.  As I was talking to Lara and explaining what they normally do here, we realized the huge differences in the cultures.  Most of the time, we go to these parties; and there are just bags of sandwiches plopped on the table with drinks.  Lara pointed out that with Americans, the WOW factor... the presentation of the theme... is a huge thing.  With Spaniards, they just want to get together!  They don't care about presentation.  I did a little bit of a mix of both.  Carolina wanted a "Frozen" theme, so we did that; but I just stuck with normal Nocilla (which is like Nutella) sandwiches, chips and drinks.  I also added peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, since all of them have heard about it in the movies or on TV, but never tried one. haha... such an American thing! (Although I do realize that most of us would never serve pb&j at a birthday party! haha...)  Most really liked them, and all commented on how unusual the combination was.

After the party was over, I realized very clearly why Spaniards don't care much about presentation.  The food was moved, shoved aside, touched, dumped together... the table totally demolished once the kids started eating.  haha... my presentation only lasted a couple minutes after everyone had arrived. Good thing I didn't spend too much time on it! :)

All in all, it was a fun night. Carolina was thrilled, and that was our goal... although, I do believe we will think twice before doing that again. ;)

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