You may or may not know about me--I live from event to event. I am all about holidays and celebrations and whatever other soirees I choose to invent. Events give me motivation. They make life magical for my boys. They make it so there is always something to look forward to.
So the end of December, as I was gearing up for a long, gray January (I historically loathe January), I decided I'd host a 'late night' Penguin Party for my kids and their cousins. I'd make penguin cupcakes and we'd watch March of the Penguins. (Blaine was thrilled. "I am SO into animal migrations, Mom!") I thought it the surefire cure to a dreary month.
So yesterday I spent all afternoon painstakingly putting together these cupcakes based on instructions from this book. I think they turned out cute, but they were insanely hard and time consuming!
When the children arrived we ate pizza and started the movie. This is where things started to go downhill. That many kids trying to watch a documentary? Forget about it. I had to go up to the playroom repeatedly (at the request of those attempting to watch) to tell the loud kids "Hey! This is a movie party! Now you will watch this movie and you will like it!" Apparently I should have gone with Happy Feet.
Bust number two was the cupcakes themselves. The black gel paste required to make black frosting had a wicked aftertaste, so most of the kids were wiping it off on paper towels. We had 11 kids with black lips, black hands, black tongues. {And no one really even liked them!!}
In planning the party ages ago, I'd pinned a possible cupcake alternative. Not nearly as elaborate, but still cute. By the time we had black frosting all over kingdom come and kids complaining about the gross taste, I was really kicking myself for not choosing the simpler ones. SIMPLER IS ALWAYS BETTER!
Well anyway, I think the kids had fun playing air hockey and building car tracks and eating cheese pizza, so not a total loss. But I definitely felt deflated.
Win some, lose some.
6 comments:
I remember taking Samuel to go see March of the Penguins. It was a matinee at the art theatre and there was us and a group of 4 adults. I can't tell you how many times they told us to be quiet. Seriously, an afternoon showing of a movie about penguins! I never could have done the party because I'm still bitter about the experience!! Kudos to you for giving it a try! As for the black icing, sometimes I just substitute chocolate and call it good!! You're way more fun than me!
Oh don't you worry, this was chocolate frosting. I don't know why I didn't just leave it brown!!
Those cupcakes are amazing Anne! Way to go!
Hey, at least you have a picture of how darling they turned out!
I made skull cake pops for James' Halloween party at his school..oh wait, I'm sorry...his "Fall Party" and a few of the kids took one little nibble and threw the rest away!?!?!? I was SO ANNOYED! haha.
Lady you are such an inspiration!!! Thank you!
When I've had to have black for decorating purposes, I have used crushed oreos on chocolate frosting. Not sure it would have worked on those-probably gravity would have been a challenge. But, the kids like it better than the black stuff. I'll have to try a penguin party for next year, January is always so slow for us! thanks for the ideas!
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