Belle's Birthday Series: The Party

For the past 5 years, Belle has been celebrating her birthday at home. We only had a big party during her 1st birthday but the other four, it was just always with family and very close friends.

This year, she requested if she can invite selected classmates and friends, more or less 20 kids total including her cousins.  It's not a small party after all.  I have requested an Art teacher and good friend Rosevie to conduct art activities with the kids and prepare some games too.

The party was set on her exact birth date, May 26th. The weather was perfect.  It didn't rain unlike the previous days. It was such an exciting day for our little princess! 

She's all dressed up an hour before her guests arrived and the first to have her face painted with 6 cute and glittering hearts.

Her friends started to arrive and became busy with the mask painting.

Soon, the games started.  We prepared lots of prizes and they all enjoyed selecting their prizes even if they lost in the games.

It's time to blow her six little candles!  All the kids were excited with her Tangled Castle Cake.  I asked Belle what's her wish, she whispered to me that she would like to have fairy wings so she can fly!

Eating time...  Since I had a big cake to prepare, we decided to have the food catered this time to save me from cooking. Our long time friends Jimmy and Cathy Laurian of Cafe Urbe prepared a sumptuous food for us. We had Baked Macaroni, Roast Beef with buttered vegetables, Fish fingers, Chicken Alexander and Pork BBQ.  They even brought 50 cupcakes as a gift for Belle.  I baked my all-time favorite red velvet cake for dessert.

Everybody was curious what's inside the castle cake so I did the honor of slicing the cake and sharing with everyone.  They even enjoyed the small fondant stones and flowers around the cake.  Rapunzel almost fell down because the kids kept on pulling and eating her hair :)

Moist Chocolate Cake

 Next was another fun part... Cookie Decorating!

Good job kids!

Then, Pabitin and Pinata time...

Belle's special message "Thank you for coming to my party. Thank you Daddy and Mommy for this party!"  She's really very happy and she showed us how grateful she is!

Giving of the Loot bags

The party lasted for more than 4 hours.  Some of them went swimming while the others continue with the art activities. Family and very good friends continued arriving until dinner. Indeed, a great celebration and thanksgiving for the gift of life for Belle.

Moon Dough gifts from Daddy, Mommy & Kuya Matt

"Thank you for all the wonderful gifts"

It's so funny Belle is already thinking of what her cake would be on her 7th birthday.  She told me she would like another castle cake with lots of fairies. Oh my, at least I still have one year to prepare :)

See previous posts: The Cake and The Preparations.

Belle's Birthday Series: The Preparations

Belle has been asking me why can't she celebrate her birthday in school just like her classmates.  I always answer  -- because your birthday falls during summer so there's no class in school!  Before the end of the school year, I tried getting phone numbers of some parents of her classmates so we can invite them at home for a small celebration on her 6th birthday. She was very excited then! I'm glad that most of them were available to come last Saturday, May 26th.

Here are some of the preparations we made for the party.

The Invite (made by Daddy)

The Loot Bags (Hand made by Mommy, Belle helped in putting the goodies in the bags)

The Cake  - Lovingly made by Mommy and Daddy.

Tangled Castle Cake

The Cookies - I thought of other creative activities (aside from face and mask painting) during the party so I baked some sugar cookies ahead of time for the kids to decorate with royal icing.

I even stamped "BELLE 6" on each cookie :)

The activity was a HIT! Both the kids and the mommies enjoyed decorating the cookies.  I also got feedback that the cookies tasted so good!

Beautiful cookie creations

Balloons and other decorations (Special thanks to Tito Nathan and Tita Lani for inflating and arranging the balloons)

Good thing I have some of her 8R solo pictures

 

 

Pabitin and Pinata - hanging in the middle of our foyer!

I forgot to take pictures of the prizes,  the games were facilitated by Tita Rosevie and Tita Jamie.  They also conducted the face and mask painting activities during the party. Belle was so excited to see all her friends again!  And she keeps on thanking us for giving her a party :) Next year daw ulit!

Belle's Birthday Series: The Cake

I've been long preparing for my little girl's 6th birthday celebration.  She has requested me to bake a cake with Rapunzel on her tall tower!  I got my inspiration from a blog shared to me by a Korean Cake Decorator Deborah Hwang.  She was kind enough to give me a link to her blog. Unfortunately, it was written in her native language so I just relied on the photos.  I am really very grateful to her!

May 25 - one day before the big day. I started assembling the cake although I baked them the day before. I only have limited pictures and I always say "Sayang, I should have captured everything in my camera!"

The Tower

Two batches of chocolate cake

I was too busy and pressed for time I forgot to take pictures.  My hands were so messy all the time.  After more than 6 hours, with breaks in between, the cake was 90% completed. It's already 3am of May 26,  Belle's birthday! 

Of course, I wouldn't have done this without the help of his Daddy.  He prepared all the fondant for me, kneading them patiently to get the right texture.  He also stayed awake even if he was so tired from work and helped with the small decorations. I can't wait for our little girl to see her birthday cake.  I promised that it will be ready by the time she wakes up.  The sun was almost up when I went to bed!

Here are some more pictures of her Tangled Castle Cake.

 

 What a lovely smile from the birthday girl! We love you so much! Happy 6th birthday!