Falling Into Four

By: Amy

Recently the Tiny One moved to a new home and he is beyond excited and we are adjusting well.  Last week, in world record breaking pace, we packed up our whole lives on a very rainy day filled with torrential downpours.  We moved across town to an amazing new neighborhood bursting with families reminiscent of where I grew up in East Sandwich. 

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Due to previously made commitments in October, we were not going to be at home for the Tiny One’s 4th birthday this year.  We decided to move the celebration to the weekend prior to Columbus Day. At first I thought we were crazy.  We debated having it at a location which would make life a little less hectic.  But we decided that we would have it at the new house and just be very efficient with our time.   In the end, I am glad we made this decision because it forced us to unpack quickly (disclosure:  my loving and very organized other half used some vacation time and unpacked a huge majority along with some help from a few of our  family members) and throw a party at our new home in only 3 days!  Thankfully the Tiny One is an October baby which makes it a little easy for me to get a party and theme together quickly. 

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We decided on a theme of Fall/Harvest Festival.  I quickly went to work finding the simplest and easiest things I could do to make the party festive.  First, I enlisted my mother, “Mimi”,  to create a festive fall salad.  She delivered a gorgeous fall cranberry salad in a festive orange bowl complete with stickers!  I then went to work creating a variety of fall pizzas and one antipasto pizza (to be featured in a future Tasty Tuesday recipe).  The Harvest roasted vegetable pizza  was one of the favorites and was quickly eaten.  There was also another pizza that had zucchini and some other fabulous veggies as well. And we made small cheese pizzas for the kids, though I did see some kiddos sneaking pieces of the vegetable ones...score!

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I also contacted the Great Cape Baking Company and ordered 2 dozen of their delectable apple cider donuts that the Tiny One is obsessed with after having tantalized his taste buds with these delicious treats  at the Rotary Craft Fair this year. Seriously if you have not tried these amazing donuts at the various craft and farmer’s markets for the past several years, you are missing out because these donuts melt in your mouth! The owner is super nice too and met me    If you want to save them for later, you can also slowly reheat them in the oven!   I also prepped up some of the Cape Cod Moms homemade mini apple pies to add to the fall theme.  

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My sweetie’s mom also helped out by making a very special pumpkin cake which was amazing.   She actually made this on our move in day when they came over for dinner and we loved it so much we asked her  to make it again for the party.  She made and decorated the whole thing herself and it did not disappoint any of the Tiny guests. The Tiny One  still wakes up every morning wanting a pumpkin cake! She also made chocolate covered Halloween Oreos for the party too!  They were amazing and the kids and adults could not get enough of them! 

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We kept it simple for decorations opting for just table cloths and some plastic pumpkins we got from Michaels.  The guys made a veggie platter for the table and even carved out a small pumpkin to put the humus in!  The table ended up looking awesome once everything is on it.  The weather turned out to be good that day with no rain until some sprinkles in the early evening. Thank you Mother Nature for cooperating! 

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The pumpkins also had a duel use. We bought enough for every child attending the party (I saved 50% off my order thank you so much to the generous Cape Cod Mom in line in front of me who passed on her extra  coupon to me: WINNING!). We also purchased  a  bunch of Halloween stickers so the kids could decorate their pumpkins because the idea of carving or painting them sounded way too stressful.  I absolutely loved this idea because the pumpkins never go bad, the kids could make them and take them home!  This was a fantastic activity for all the kids to do at the party and kept them entertained and focused for quite a while! And who doesn't love a pumpkin that can't rot?!!?  We also set up a little ring toss pumpkin game on the grass which some of the littlest loved as well! 

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After cake, I decided to debut my Pinterest attempt at “Boonanas”, which are white chocolate covered bananas on a stick with 2 chocolate chips for eyes,  However working with chocolate can be tough and my “Boonanas” did not come out quite as pretty as the Pinterest picture showed.  However the Tiny One was obsessed with them and declared that I did an excellent job at them so I will take that A for effort on this particular Pinterest fail. I sampled one myself and they were actually quite good. The white chocolate goes nicely with the banana. As long as the kids are happy, who cares, right?

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Overall the party was a huge success and we had a chance to see friends and family, some of whom we had not seen in a long time.  It was so great to see the kids all playing together and getting along, many of them having known each other since birth (many of them were in the Falmouth Breastfeeding Support group when they were infants and we all keep in touch still).  The kids and adults left happy with sticker books and another mini pumpkin as their favors with our gratitude for celebrating a special day with us! We feel so incredibly lucky and blessed to be able to have such a great community of family and friends in our lives that support us and enrich our lives as well. Thank you to that amazing group for making the day so special for all of us!  Next up on our list is to do our thank you notes! And for the 1st time the Tiny One can actually fully take part in the process! Stay tuned.

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