Rainbow Birthday Party

     We just celebrated Adelle's 5th birthday! I cannot believe how fast the time has flown. I know this sounds so cliche' but it seriously seems like she was born just YESTERDAY!  We don't go all out for birthdays, but we decided when she was a baby that there would be select few birthdays that we would celebrate big. Turning 5 years old was one of them.   

The Decorations:

       

We started by deciding on a theme. Adelle choose a rainbow theme.  Yay! That theme is pretty easy to plan coordinating decore, food and games.  Then I started to make my own decorations.  I began the process about a month ahead of time, using the few minutes I have in the evenings to wind down.  I cut up one-inch strips of construction paper, different colors, to make paper chains.  One sheet of each color made for a pretty long chain.  We saved some money there because I already had the paper and this would take the place of crepe paper. Then I bought a couple of sheets of poster board ($.30 per sheet at Walmart) to make a couple of signs.  

The Activity:

     There were so many rainbow activities and games that we could've done! I ended up using a simple open-ended activity:  WATER COLOR PAINT!  I purchased a set of water color paint for each child that were present. The kids painted if they wanted to. They certainly didn't have to take part, but they still received a paint set.  That was our party favor; our thank you for celebrating with us.  

The Cake: 

         

     I saw so many designs and ideas that I seriously couldn't decide upon until the very last minute!  Anyhow, I ended up meshing 2 different ideas together.  You can find the tutorials here and here. 

     The square bottom of my cake is chocolate and I just used a box mix. I baked it in my long cookie sheet, so it was long and thin. I cut it in half and put it on top of each other layering the middle with a thin layer of homemade buttercream frosting and then frosting the top and sides.  Then I "glued" my rainbow cake halves together leaving the sides unfrosted. I picked up the rainbow shape cake, centered it over the square cake before setting it on top. I frosted the entire rainbow shape with more buttercream frosting. 

     Let me stop here and say that my frosting was back to room temp before I started to work with it again, but it was crazy difficult for me to work with! It just wasn't spreading easily at all, but it was the BEST part of the cake!  Ha ha ha!  

     Anyway.  I was so frustrated with the frosting that I used rainbow twizzlers to cover the top of the rainbow cake and used sprinkles all around the rest of the cake.  I made my letters out of construction paper circles glued to craft sticks.  

     I want to mention that the rainbow INSIDE the cake was a big big surprise! Everyone oohhed and ahhhed over it.  That was my favorite part.... it made me smile!  

 I consider this birthday party a huge success!