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SuperChic’s Super Pink Barbie Birthday Party
This past weekend my niece SuperChic turned seven. In true SuperChic fashion she chose a pink Barbie-themed birthday party. I think visiting Barbie’s mansion this past March made a real impression on her. Or she’s just a typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sort of girl. Which she is.
However my sister-in-law and I are not really typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sorts so we planned a pink and black vintage-Barbie-inspired party instead. It was a lot of fun. I have to say even I caught the pink fever (again).
My mom sewed her famous flags in pink and black polka-dots (I wish I had a better photo of them) to match the black polka-dot table cloth she already had. There was finger food and pink drinks in fancy plastic flutes that CC found at the last minute. Pink fun-fur (and one blue) boas for everyone and Red-Vines for sippy straws. The divas in the house gave it their seal of approval.
Just kidding Bethany. You are not a diva.
CC made pink S cookies (SuperChic’s real name starts with S) and Bethany baked some impromptu chocolate cupcakes so I could have my Barbie cake toppers stuck in their frosted skirts.
Let me just take a moment to share something about Bethany. I know I’ve mentioned before that all it takes to get her to bake something is to casually mention that you’ve been hankering for this or that sweet. Well, we’ve taken this game to the next level. It’s taken on Dinner Impossible proportions. Now all I have to do is challenge her to any baking task and she’s off banging cookie sheets before I can say, “I was just kidding!”
Seriously, this girl cannot be stopped. So here was this weekend’s feat: I challenged Bethany to bake something in my mother’s teeny-tiny mobile home kitchen. This is no easy task. First imagine the kitchen: It is small. Maybe three feet across and six feet long with a door on one end and one of those impossibly low and stupid dining counters on the other. There is not one speck of counter space. If you want to mix, cut or work on anything you must do it over the sink, the stove or the trash can.
Next imagine an oven that is half the size of a normal oven. It’s about two steps up from an Easy-Bake oven with an inconsistent thermostat to boot. Then imagine that small oven stuffed with about five cookie sheets that are just stored there because there is nowhere else to keep them. That right there is enough to deter me from baking.
Anyway, before I completely hijack my niece’s birthday post with ramblings about my mom’s Mickey-Mouse sized kitchen I would like to present to you this:
It is a vanilla cake. Made from scratch. I like to call it “Trailer Park Cake” even though my mom does not really live in a trailer park. She just lives in a small mobile home on a cul-de-sac on the somewhat nicer side of the sticks. It’s not a bad place, and the neighbors are nice. One of them loaned us baking powder for this cake, in fact.
Anyway, the cake was delicious.
Perfectly moist, not too sweet with a light glaze on top. Bethany is going to be the end of me and my healthy diet. Phooey! But really? How can I not challenge her like this? This nuance in her personality just boggles and amazes me to no end. Next up I’m going to see if she can make brownies over a campfire.
Back to the birthday party. The reason Bethany baked some chocolate cupcakes is because I had my heart set on using these little vintage-inspired Barbie-doll cupcake toppers. As Bethany is to baking, I am to crafting and graphic design. (Though I’m not claiming to be as masterful as Bethany, just as dedicated.)
I think I thought this cupcake-topper idea up long before the Barbie party was even in planning stages and I may have slightly manipulated the whole event around my vision of little paper Barbie bodices stuck into cupcake skirts. So when the party preparation got underway and it looked like the cupcakes were going to fall by the wayside due to time and budget constraints, you can imagine that I was a little crestfallen. And that is why my dear friend Bethany came to the rescue.
Anyway! Contrary to popular belief, this party is not about me. No small children were harmed during my obsession with a party theme being carried out to the smallest detail! This party was about SuperChic turning seven smashingly. I think she had a blast.
We all did
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My Favorite Veteran
When I’m out in the sticks visiting my mom, I often walk over to the retirement home that my Grandpa lives in around the block and have coffee with him. Coffee is free and I usually need a cup pretty bad since my mom is not a coffee drinker. It’s a perfect time for us to visit.
Sometimes my Grandpa tells stories about the two years he was stationed in England during World War Two—little gems here and there. You never really know what he’s going to share with you.
My Grandpa wasn’t a war hero or anything, in fact he never even really got to serve. He was trained to be an air traffic controller but he was one of three guys ready for the job. The other two guys worked out so his services were never needed. When you ask my Grandpa about being a war veteran he always kind of shrugs sheepishly because he pretty much did nothing but kick around London for two years. Not a bad life for twenty-something-year-old.
Today my Grandpa told me the story of how he got drafted. He was living with his mother and her new husband at the time and he wasn’t really getting along with the new husband. Apparently they had a disagreement over how to build a fire. I know how men can be about building fires. I’ve seen Toby and his brother disagree over the art of fire-building myself and believe me there was some tension in the room.
Anyway, I guess the new husband thought he could build a fire by stacking up newspapers flat and then setting the logs on top. Even I know that won’t work and I’ve never been a girl scout. So when my Grandpa corrected his stepfather I guess things got pretty uncomfortable. It’s hard to imagine my Grandpa being confrontational. He’s not a fighter at all. I’m sure he decided to leave long before they kicked him out.
That day my Grandpa walked down to the Army Recruiters office to see where his name was in the draft. The woman who worked there couldn’t find his file anywhere and told him to go home and count his blessings. That is where my Grandpa says he went wrong. He confides that he got to talking to the woman. She was a good looking girl and I guess things got a little flirtatious. It’s funny to hear my Grandpa tell these stories because my Grandpa isn’t really the flirtatious type. He is charming though. I will say that.
They got to talking and he stayed too long. Eventually she found his file. It had fallen down behind her desk drawer. He was shipped off to England two days later. Funny how things work out.
But I’m glad my Grandpa spent two years in England. He fell in love with my Grandma during those two years. They had only just met right before he shipped out. I think my Grandma was even seeing someone else at the time but they decided to stay in touch with letters anyway. They wrote letters every day. It makes you wonder what might have happened if things had happened differently.
