Party Prepping 2012

It has been a busy birthday weekend for Baby Bear. It has been some work prepping for it all for Mama Bear, which has put me behind with all the blogging. I had been planning and prepping for a few months now, doing things here and there but it all came down to those last couple of days. I took a couple of days off the end of last week so that I could prep for the big birthday party (and big is an understatement). Thursday, I spent the day running errands around town. Costco, grocery store, mall, party store, etc. I was going non-stop, but I did fit in yoga and a workout.

Friday I started the day with a yoga class to get myself balanced and focused for the weekend ahead. I spent the rest of the day cooking.



I made 6 batches of pasta salad and 6 batches of bean salad. Easy recipes to make, but time consuming with all the chopping that had to be done. I had the help of my handy dandy chopper. I love this chopper.

Between the two salads I used 6 boxes of pasta, 9 tomatoes, 15 bell peppers, 6 red onions, 6 cans of pinto beans, 12 cans of black beans, 48 oz of corn, 2 bunches of cilantro, 1 1/2 cups of olive oil, 2 garlic cloves, 5 bottles of dressing, 6 limes, 6 cans of sliced olives, and a lot of salt and pepper. It was a lot of food, but I had to prepare enough food for about 100 people. We had plenty and food left over, which was great.

I had intended to bake brownies as well, but after all that I was beat and just didn't want to cook any more. It was the best decision I made. We had cake and that was more than enough.

Friday evening I packed up the Suburban with everything that was not perishable. The back of the Suburban was packed. We had quite a bit to bring to the park.

The centerpieces for the tables packed up and ready for transport.



The centerpieces consisted of princess tulle wands that I made for all the little princesses coming to the party. They served two purposes, a party favor and a centerpiece. I wrapped some empty oatmeal containers to serve as vases and added my design to keep with the theme of the party. I had spent the last month and half making these wands and made a total of 28 tulle wands. Daddy thought I was crazy for spending every night on these things but, they were just so cute that I had to do it. I ended up using 220 yards of tulle, 70 yards of ribbon, and 3 sticks of hot glue sticks. I thought they turned out great. (Actually someone who was driving by the park asked about the centerpieces before the party started, they wanted to know where we got them. Daddy proudly told them that I made them.)



The rest of the party favors were wrapped up (I had spent the week before on these) and ready to be boxed up for transport. Since we decided not to do a pinata, I wanted to make sure the kids still got their candy fix (It was actually a wise decision not to do the pinata since there was really no where to do it at the park). Candy wrapped in pink for the girls and purple for the boys (there are actually more purple ones already in the box) a total of 48 ready to go. I was expecting 38 kids, but had extra on hand just in case.



The little girls got a little tiara ring along with their candy.



Boxed and ready to go.


 

We also cleaned the house up Friday evening, so that we could come home after the party to a relatively clean house. By 9:30pm, my truck was packed up, the house was clean, and I was able to rest up for the big party on Saturday. Not too bad. I sure was glad that I took those days off to prep. I was exhausted so rest was definitely welcomed since I had been going non-stop for days.