Hazel’s Nature Birthday Party

We finally had Hazel’s party almost a month after her birthday.  But I think she preferred late to never.  :) 
She requested a Nature Party and I was good with that.  So here are the invitations we made.

And then we rolled them up like so.  Very cute.
  It was pretty fun and easy to decorate the little table.  I got a red tablecloth, and we borrowed a gnome from a neighbor, and a log, and the kids gathered naturey stuff -  Leaves, pinecones, flowers, a nest. 

Oh yeah, we also made a little branch vase by getting a tin can and breaking sticks to about that height, putting an elastic around them and covering it with raffia.  I think it’s cute.

So… these cupcakes umm, they were a good idea but the execution didn’t go too well.  Oh well.  They were supposed to be little cupcake pops like the ones here.  Many things went wrong.  I’ll spare you the details.  Oh, except one.  Those little white spots?  They are little non-sugar sweeteners for tea and stuff.  So I figured they’d be sweet and taste if not good at least all right.  Well, turns out they tasted more like baking soda.  NASTY.  I used them anyway since I wanted the mushrooms to have spots, and had the kids pick them off.  Which is harder than it sounds because those mushrooms are chocolate, not fondant.


And I fail as a mother because I didn’t even take one picture of just Hazel with her cupcakes.  Ruff.

I crocheted these little acorn cap necklaces for everyone (they only took a couple minutes), and Ethne found some old hazelnuts outside, since there aren’t any acorns this time of year.  Idea from here.
 
   
Then I sent the kids to the woods to collect things for their terrariums.  I told them to stay together and not get lost.  They complied.  Good kids.  Here they are on their way back.

Then they all got a jar (found at the thrift store) and created a terrarium.  They found everything except I bought some little flowers and little birds.  They turned out pretty cute.




 
After that they just played until it was time for everyone to go home.  Then almost all of them ran home and asked if they could stay longer and came back.  :)

Oh yeah, see in Ethne’s right hand there’s a little pencil with a yellow top?  I was trying to make toadstool pencils like these, but I could not find little wooden buttons anywhere- we scoured the Bauhaus (which is like Lowes or Home Depot) to no avail.  I was quite annoyed.  I was running into that kind of thing a bunch while trying to get things for the party- a bunch of things I don’t know where to find here, or if they even have them.  In the States I would know.  It’s annoying.  Anyhow, Brett was a hero and whittled me little buttons which I then glued onto the ends of the pencils and let the girls paint themselves.  And I don’t seem to have a picture, even though I thought I took one. 
Anywho, the kids had fun and we even taught them some American games like Red Rover and Duck Duck Goose. 


Hazel, being Hazel, drew a little gnome for decoration.  Isn’t he cute?

The end.