Posted by Ethne~
Amazingly
(tear) my lil' ones turn FIVE tomorrow. I am in shock. That's right.
Five years ago Shaun drove me to the hospital for my scheduled c-section
- easiest birth ever. I'll just say that c-sections should be given to
everyone. Like balloons. Just hand that sh*t out. Lori claims that
natural delivery *with epidural* was totally cool, but she also had a
mini baby.
 |
| Perfection |
KD
and Easy Mac were, by far, the most perfect babies ever born. I'm
their mother, don't even debate me on this all you other moms out
there! All our babies were the most perfect, I get it blah blah, but on
the commemoration of my own babies' births, I get to make the claim,
got it?
Jumping ahead and out of my reverie, this year, the girls asked for a VAMPIRE BIRTHDAY PARTY!! This in*no*way
has to do with their mother's love of Twilight. Nope. And I can say
in all sincerity that they asked for a vampire theme on their own.
Liking vampires, however, could be genetic on both the female Hedren and
Denham sides of the family. Shaun is resigned to his fate. He
grumbled under his breath, for just a nanosecond, and maybe died a
little inside, and then decreed that IT COULD NOT be a Twilight party
and that the adults could have Bloody Marys. Great idea, I said. I
also, under my breath, said that it wouldn't be ONLY a Twilight party,
it would be a vampire party, which includes Twilight. See what a good
wife and mother I am? I accommodate everyone, including myself.
 |
| Work Edward in? You betcha. |
Having
their birthday in October makes this a great party theme since
Halloween is just around the corner and all decor is already on sale at
stores (because they're already making room on shelves for Christmas
decor - it's effing ridiculous). I tried to convince my friend, Grizz,
whose c-section is scheduled for a mere TWO days after Halloween that
they should move the delivery of Baby H up to Oct. 31, but she and her
husband looked at me like I had two heads and proposed that they burn
their house down. Whatevs. I think that a Halloween birthday would be
the BEST THING EVER. I wanted to get married on Halloween and have a
costume wedding, but I think that a combination of Shaun politely
disfavoring the idea and not wanting to wait for October to come around
pushed us to July. That would've ROCKED. Maybe we can just change our
anniversary and wear costumes.
I
was trying to be economical, but finding ideas online for a KID vampire
birthday party wasn't easy, even on my beloved Pinterest. I found
adult party stuff, which had a lot to do with alcohol; I found Twilight
party stuff, which was outlawed; and I found kid Halloween stuff, which
wasn't quite what I was after. So I pretty much had to hodge-podge
things together. I decided to expand the theme slightly to include bats
and coffins, since that would still play on vampire lore, but allow a
lot more decor options (given all the Halloween decor out there). I
kept the colors black and red, with touches of purple. I also added in
some spiderwebs and spiders, which Shaun said didn't go with the theme
but I reminded him that Dracula doesn't dust his castle so it has lots
of spiders and spiderwebs. He can't argue with such solid logic.
 |
| "No honey, you're right, Dracula wouldn't have maid-vamps at his castle to dust." *not actual quote |
These
are some of the things I did: blood-dripping candles, which are a
simple dripping of red candle wax around the edges of a larger white
candle. Works like a charm.
I talked to a lady at JoAnn and she suggested making bloody jello, so I made cherry
jello in wine glasses (one small box made 3 large wine glasses half
full) that I put pre-washed spiders and fingers in. Totally
creeptastic. The kids LOVED it. Actually, Easy Mac and KD loved
picking the stuff out of the jello but weren't as keen on eating the
jello. Poor sports. That's ok. Auntie Heather and I ate it instead
and it was DALISH.
Pretty
much my fave part was the pictures on the wall. I bought
gothic-looking black picture frames (with glass) at the dollar store.
They were mostly 4"x6" size. Into them, I put close-up pictures of
Shaun, the girls, their friend AF, me and my fave vamps Edward and Eric
from TrueBlood - so this is how I got my Twilight in. I really didn't
go overboard, honest. Then onto the glass, Shaun and I painted fangs
and bite marks and red blood droplets on our faces over the glass in
white and red fingernail polish. It was genius. I hung these up with
3M removable hooks in the dining room around our larger family pic
there, and then to make that more theme-y (since I wasn't about to paint
on that with nail polish) I put some fake spiderweb and spiders. It
looks so cool.
I
made a bat banner out of foam bats I bought in a pack at JoAnn for $2.
I tied the wings together with string so they acted like joints and
were flexible. I also bought a big purple garland bat from Target for
$1 and gel sticky blood drops for the glass for $2. To give any party
room more oomph, add some crepe paper streamers, and for this, I did
black of course!
We
kept the food pretty simple. I made red velvet cupcakes, which was
really economical since you can now buy red velvet cake mix for $2.99
which comes with frosting and a piping bag for putting the frosting on
the cupcakes. Awesome. I couldn't help myself, though, when I saw at
JoAnn that they make a coffin cupcake-size cake pan. I knew the girls'
cakes had to be made out of those. Decision Done. I did feel like I
was cheating though, just doing cupcakes, so I decided to make a cupcake
stand. I bought dollar store crystal candle pillars and black and red
melamine plates from Target. Total cost - $5. Glue gunned together, it
looked so cool. And then we made spaghetti, homemade garlic bread,
some dips and red caramel corn (which kinda looked like brains if I'm
being honest).
I
had to make the girls look like little vampiresses. I found them black
dresses with black sequins (they love wearing dresses, so I opted for a
black dress from Children's Place that they can wear many more times
rather than a costume-type outfit) and black leggings and black socks.
At Whit's Ulta store we found fancy, Gothic feather headbands. And, OF
COURSE, I did their make-up FULL ON GOTHIC. It was pretty much the
cutest ever. Kohl around the eyes and red lips. They thought they were
just so gorgeous and grown-up. Per KD's request, I found
glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth, and I also found kid-size vamp capes for
all 3 girls at Walmart for $5, which was less than I could've made them
for.
 |
| Easy Mac |
 |
| KD |
 |
| AF |
So that's the 5th Vampire Birthday Party. It was awesome. On the girls' party favor bags, I put this quote:
Forget princess, I want to be a Vampire.
