Moo Turns 5!

Well we just got back from a lovely trip to see Grammy and Grampy to celebrate Moo's 5th birthday! She's already 5, I just can't believe it. Anyway, after weeks of crazy planning (never try to plan anything on your own if you have a baby - you end up driving yourself nuts) and late night painting/gluing/crafting sessions party day was finally here. Moo wanted a My Little Pony Party, but not the original ponies that I grew up with, or the ponies in their late 90's/early 2000's reincarnations...she wanted the ponies of today. The My Little Pony Friendship is Magic ponies, which just started airing about 3 months ago and who have a total of 4 toys on the market right now. So there was going to be a lot of creativity since Mommy couldn't really go anywhere to find these guys. We ended up using Moo's ponies as a centerpiece on top of an original pony tablecloth from the party store, with a bit of confetti thrown in for good measure. We bought a pinata, also from the party store and also an original style pony. As for entertainment, we played a few games. I painted a new style pony on a piece of poster board for Pin the Cutie Mark on the Pony (that little symbol on the flank is the cutie mark). I also made up a game for Moo where she had to follow the clues an evil pony (from the new series) had left her to find her pinata. She really liked that one, and the pinata.
Then, since Moo was really the only kid (besides Toots) we had a game that everyone could play. I found a website on-line for scavenger hunts and thought it might be fun, but was worried about doing a hunt in just one house. So I decided to do a funny photo hunt. I made up a list of all kinds of funny photos each team had to take to complete the challenge, then we all downloaded our photos to the laptop attached to the t.v. while we ate lunch. After lunch, we all voted on which team had the funniest photos. It was a hoot. We had two teams of three and wouldn't you know it, Moo didn't want to be on my team? It starts young, I guess. Anyway, it was really a fun way to get everyone involved and made for some great pictures. Can anyone say Christmas Card?
The cake was just a chocolate cake but baked in a bundt pan shaped like a little Christmas cottage. Grammy and my brother piped some frosting on the details of the cake to make them stand out a bit and we wrote Happy Birthday on the tray we served it on. I chose the shaped pan for many reasons. One, I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off a pony shaped cake. Two, I had one day at Grammy's house to get everything set up and make the food for the party the next day and that didn't seem like enough time to be messing around with pony cake construction. Three, it was the perfect size house for the littlest ponies in Moo's collection. Four, I just really wanted to try out that pan.

It turned out to be a perfect party. Moo had tons of fun, even though there weren't any other kids there and all the "grown ups" played kid games and ate cake shaped like a house. AND I got a bunch of great shots of the whole family in ridiculous set ups. As a courtesy to those involved I have not posted any of these pics here. But trust me, they were great. Try a game like that at your next family gathering and have some fun!