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. ;)
