Anabella's Cooking Party

Preparing the table the weekend before the party....she laid out the napkins as placemats and put heart doilies under all the cups.

Since the theme was "cooking" and it was the day before Valentine's Day, we decided to go with a "love" themed decor. Pink is still Anabella's favorite color, so she loved it. 

Appetizer: Belle's Bacon Bites
Main Course: Pizza Puffs & Credle Crunchies
(served with delicious dip)
Dessert: Fancy Fruit & Dipped Delectables

Besides the menus, the only other party preparation (besides the table, which we did the weekend before), was the chef hats. I found a simple DIY online for those. Nothing but poster board cut into strips and then a piece of a tissue paper folded over it.

I purchased the aprons from Michaels craft store along with some fabric markers. I also put out some stencils in case anyone wanted to use those. And some stickers for decorating the hats. 

Anabella and Svetlana made their aprons early, a few days before the party, since Svetlana would be arriving late due to her basketball game.

The day before the party, I signed out early from school and went to the grocery store. I'm doing a long term subbing job at the kids' school for the preschool teacher so I don't have kids on Friday, only home visits. After my 1pm visit, I took the rest of the afternoon off. Good thing! Even doing that and having Chip take Anabella to ballet and the kids to dinner afterwards, I still didn't have everything I wanted to do finished before I called it quits that night around 10pm.

I figured I'd just get up early the next morning to finish preparing for the party. I didn't know at the time that early would be 3:30AM! But, when I woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep (thinking of all I had to do), I decided to go ahead and get up and just get it done. Good thing! It was after 6am by the time I got everything done.

I didn't think I had that much to do, but by the time (making chicken salad, veggie dip, cutting up veggies and fruit, making a cheeseball, slice & toast 2 baguettes for the bacon bites and prepare the toppings for that; and preparing all the dishes for the party- the prep dishes for the kids to make their recipes....that's what really took the longest....making sure I had everything ready so the "cooking" would go smoothly.....well, it all took longer than I anticipated.)

Anyway, it was nice to have it done before the kids woke up; since that day, the 13th, was their actual birthday I wanted to spend time with them and not spend the morning rushing around like a chicken with her head cut off!

Speaking of chickens, the kids wanted Chick-fil-a chicken minis for their birthday breakfast, so that was easy; and we had a pretty laid back couple hours before the party, which started at 11:30am.

Mom, Dad and Granny came early, a little before 11am and gave the kids their presents when they arrived.

Daniel has been asking for this IronMan Lego set since he saw it in his book in the smaller lego IronMan set he got for Christmas. He was SO excited. He and Hayden took it downstairs and worked on it for practically the entire party. We had to make them take a break to eat and then again to return for cake. 

He also really liked the Captain America chain and keychain that Granny got him. 

Granny also got him a Captain America shield set he wanted. 

Hayden brought him a present, too. A new Nerf! 

Before we knew it, Anabella's guests started to arrive. 

Every single school friend that she invited RSVP'd yes to her party.
Every school friend! Does that ever happen? I'm just glad she only invited five!!

Lily, our neighbor friend from across the street, was also there. As well as Svetlana. The two of them, plus Anabella and her five school friends made 8 girls. We originally had 9, but Hadley was diagnosed with strep the day before, so she missed it.  I had room for 8 at the table, so it ended up working out; though Belle was really disappointed and missed her Hadley girl. 

I knew I'd be busy with the kids, so I asked Allie to take pictures.
She did a nice job; though I didn't "assign" her this position until after the kids had made their aprons/hats, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. 

Anabella's little friend Mackenzie took Hadley's role from last year as Anabella's "favorite guest" (I need to talk to her about not doing this, but I think she really can't help doting on someone).  This is her best friend from her class this year, and I couldn't be happier about her choice. This sweet girl was adopted from China when she was 3 years old. She exudes joy. I am not kidding you; she is the sweetest girl ever (besides my own daughter, of course). Her parents are amazing Christ filled people who are passionate about adoption and are a family of 6, soon to be 7. I met her father when he came to speak about his family's passion at one of my MOPS meetings years ago, just after adopting the special girl in this picture along with her sister, Lily, who had a heart transplant and is this year's American Heart Association's Face of Heart. I remember being so inspired by her family's story all those years ago; who knew our paths would cross again! Good choice of friend, Anabella! 

This little girl on the left is another sweet one; her name is Sophia. 

I was good at assigning jobs this party; I assigned Erika the punch lady. She served all the cooks a scoop of ice cream and added some soda. The girls stirred it, and they had their first recipe:
Punch: ice cream and soda 

Here I am explaining how to make the first recipe (second if you count the punch):
Pizza Puffs: roll out the dough (crescent roll)
add a half of mozzarella cheese stick and some pepperonis and roll it up. Bake for 5-7 minutes in preheated 375 degree oven.

Chef Belle wrote her friends' names beside their pizza puff so we'd know whose was whose. They all washed their hands prior to "cooking," but we still wanted to make sure everyone ate their own finished product.

Watch out, Sofia! He's a sly one.....

While the pizza puffs were baking, we started our next recipe, one of Anabella's favorites.
Belle's Bacon Bites: place one spoonful of the following in your bowl and stir- mayo, sour cream, cream cheese, chives (one of the girls said "ewww" when I said that chives were green onions- ha!). Then, spread onto your toasted baguette (I toasted these ahead of time) and top with bacon.

Chef Belle demonstrating how its done. 

I couldn't have timed it any better. Just as soon as we finished making these, the pizza puffs were ready. I had the girls bring their bacon bite over to the stove where I transferred their pizza puff and bacon bite to a clean plate and sent them to the dining room to start their meal.

While they were eating, I walked around with their next recipe: delicious dip.
Delicious dip: take one spoonful of sour cream and mix with 1/8 t of seasoned salt, 1/4 t of chives, and 1/3 t of parsley. They mixed this on their plate and then helped themselves to veggies and chips/crackers from the buffet table. 

They took a little dance break before the next course, which gave me the opportunity to clear the table and prepare the island for Round 2. 

And, really, what's a party without a little dancing, right?!

How cute is this picture?!
And.....where did that cute Captain America come from?! 

The girls were dancing, and the birthday boy was shielding them with his new toy! 

Then, back to the kitchen for more "cooking."
This was one of the ideas we found from one of Belle's kids' cookbooks.
Fancy Fruit: clementine pieces, pineapple halves, strawberry pieces, cherries, blueberries....design your own creation! 

As all good cooks are, they were very sanitary...using toothpicks to get their fruit. 

Mack's smiley face was cute. 

Belle made a beautiful flower (though I think she started eating it before Aunt Allie could get a picture. 

They really had a good time with this. 

Final course was snow dipped delectables.
White chocolate and milk chocolate fondue; they used skewers and dipped fruit (strawberries and bananas) & marshmallows. They also had pretzels and animal crackers.  

This course was a huge hit and I think maybe their favorite. 

While the fondue was really enough dessert, you can't celebrate a birthday and not have cake, so....

Exactly like she requested...a red velvet cake with her wooden spoon and
 "Anabella's Cooking Party" written on it. 

After cleaning their hands (and faces), they were all a big mess, it was back to the den for more music and dancing....they had more energy for this round of dancing! 

These pictures remind me of her party from last year. 

Daniel in this one....hahahaha

Oh no, one's down! 

I hadn't planned on opening gifts with her friends still there, but her friends wanted to see her open gifts, so we did. 

 Most of them made homemade cards which were really sweet. 

They were all so excited to give Anabella their gifts, she could hardly get one open before she had another friend giving her one. 

I love that she hugged them all. :) 

Group picture
(minus Lily who was....who knows where?!)

Jillian got Anabella and herself BFF bracelets from Justice. 

Group hug! 

There's Lily!
(oops, looks like someone forgot to wash her face!)

Svetlana knows that Anabella likes to play hairdresser, so she got her this doll head with long hair for styling. 

I love this beautiful locket that Granny got her. We need to get another generational picture for her to put in it. 

She picked her own outfit for the party. It was cold for short sleeves, but so much easier to cook that way. Originally she wanted to put on her invitation that everyone should wear a "beautiful dress," but then I explained that it's awful hard to cook in a beautiful dress, even with an apron, so she decided to leave it off.
I'd say her shirt fits her personality pretty well. I wish her eyes were open, but this is still a cute picture. 

What a fun party! Great idea, Chef (Cook) Anabella Rose!!