A Cupcake Party

On Sunday, I geared up with cupcakes and sippy cups, fastened both kids into their car seats, and left the house for 4 hours, giving the mister some home alone time to study for his class. We drove down the street, they don't live too far away, to Marisa's house, Eleanore singing "we're gonna have a cupcake party", over and over again, the whole way.

It was snowing as I left the house. Just tiny little fluttery flurries, but still, I wondered if there was a snow storm on the way that I somehow hadn't heard about?

When we got there, the girls ran off in their every direction to play. Eleanore is always overwhelmed by their selection of toys. Gracie and Annelie are way into dress up, with about a billion different little outfits and accessories, whereas Eleanore, is not. So they dressed up, and Eleanore fell off of beds and sat alone at times going through whatever she found that caught her eyes, in little girl heaven basically.

After a little while, we brought out of the finger paints. Well, I say "we", but really Marisa had to do all the work, since I had brought Charlie with me. His stranger anxiety was at level 10, and I was lucky to be able to put him down for 5 minutes without clinging tears of "hold me Mommy!".

(The Birthday girl paints a pretty picture)
I wish I had more pictures of the finger painting adventures, but I wasn't able to pick up my camera until after cleaning up both of my kids, one who decided she was finished after touching only one color (blue), and the other, who had darted straight for his sisters unused paints, and then gotten angry when I requested that he stay on his paper.

(Marisa helps get the girls set up at their stations)
(Looks like fun, right?)
Next we did some scrap booking. Marisa had picked up some super cute supplies from the dollar spot at Target, and prepared them so that the girls could make memorable little scrapbooks from their birthday play date. Her girls are used to crafting 24/7, where again, Eleanore is not. We have craft time, not as often as we should these days, but Eleanore is very "do it for me", when it comes to things like this. Know what I mean? I'll set up an entire coloring station for her, markers, stickers, papers, coloring sheets- and within 3 minutes, either shes bored with it and done, or shes begging me to color in the character on the paper, and after I do and tell her to have a turn, she throws a fit. I was pleased to see her scrapbook take off without without kicking or screaming. It just goes to show me that once Eleanore does get into school, she'll blossom. Shes better at doing things like that when I'm not around.

And then came the cupcakes!

(No caption is really necessary here, just drooling)
I had made a batch of gluten free chocolate cupcakes the day before, to ensure that neither Eleanore nor I got sick (I assume this is how it will be for the rest of Eleanore's cupcake party going life), and brought them over in my new carrying case (its holds up to 36 cupcakes, and I scored it for only $15 off of a yahoo garage sales group).

(Eleanore sprinkling her sugary shapes onto her frosting)
(Gracie concentrating on her edible work of art)
(Annelie making her cupcake pretty, before she gobbles it up)
We had made a couple different color frostings, and set each girl up with their own coffee filter full of sprinkles. Eleanore wanted to pour her entire bowl of sprinkles on all at once, we had to stop her more than once. Gracie and Annelie kept licking the frosting spoons, even after Marisa had told them not to (who could resist? We don't blame them), and Charlie... well notice how Charlie isn't in any of the pictures? There is a reason for that, and I'll post it at the very end, haha.

(All finished!)
(nom nom, and nom)
(And of course, Annelie, the Birthday girl!!)
Doesn't that look like fun?? I should have gotten a picture of Marisa eating her cupcake too, even though she hates having her picture taken and might kill me for posting the one way up there in the scrap booking paragraph (Marisa, I wouldn't have posted if I thought you looked bad, but you're cah-yute, so I went for it), but at the time I think I was preoccupied with eating my own. See, while all of these chocolate cupcakes had eggs in them, I had made a separate batch of vanilla banana cupcakes, which turned out more like muffins, and I had brought a single one for myself. And in the frosting department, since I decided not to make my own, for the first time in years, I wasn't able to eat any of that either (preservatives and any kind of artificial ingredient make me just miserable). By the time we left, the little bean and I were starving.

And oh yes! I promised a picture of Charlie too, didn't I?

(You just can't please 'em all...)