It's "Wicked" Great When Celeste Turns Eight

How did my beautiful second-born become such a grown-up kid? Celeste's eighth birthday seemed to arrive even faster than Lorelai's; how is that possible? At this rate, Aurora will be turning eight in about six months or so. Getting old is rough, man!

But whether I wanted to admit it or not, Celeste was about to hit a major milestone. So it was time to get to work planning her birthday party! I've promised each of my girls a large party when they turn eight. Lorelai chose a "Phineas and Ferb" party as her theme, and that was a lot of fun to plan. At first, Celeste wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party, which I would have loved to organize (because I'm kind of a Ninja Turtles fan, ya see). In the end, though, Celeste changed her mind and wanted to throw a Wicked-themed birthday party instead. Well, I thought, at least the base color for both parties is green!

It came as no surprise to me that Celeste had Wicked on the brain. She has always loved The Wizard of Oz, ever since she was old enough to have an opinion on things. She has watched the movie regularly since she was two years old, and her three-year-old birthday party was Wizard of Oz-themed (in fact, I was a tiny bit disappointed she wanted a Wicked party; my first thought was, "I already did a party a lot like this!"). She is currently a Munchkin-in-training for our school's stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Last but not least, we took her to see Wicked on stage in Tempe just a couple of months ago.

I was happy to plan the party, but I wanted to model it more after the musical Wicked than on the movie The Wizard of Oz, mostly so I could mix up the style a little bit. Luckily for us, Celeste decided on her party theme well in advance of her birthday, so I was able to find lots of "wicked witch"-type supplies back in October, when all the Halloween stuff was in stores.

At our local dollar store, I bought a large supply of black witch hats...I almost cleaned them out! I intended to use the hats both as party favors and as a craft project. I also bought a ton of puff stickers (and dug a few old packages of leftover puff stickers out of storage). I also got some puff paint and glitter glue.

At the party, each kid would choose their hat, and then decorate the hat with the stickers, glitter, and paint. That way, everybody would have their own personalized "fashion statement" to wear home after the party. Plus, everyone would get to dress up as a witch just before Christmastime! I loved that oddball pairing of Halloween window-dressing with a holiday associated more with jingle bells and gleaming stars.

I also couldn't resist picking out my own goofy, outlandish hat from the dollar store while I was there. Granted, this wasn't a pointed witch hat, but I loved it! I thought like I looked like a character from a Harry Potter novel, which was okay by me. Of course, I looked a little dorky as well, but what are you gonna do?

The party favors would be in black bags (of course! Would Elphaba have had it any other way?), and contained a variety of stuff. A little jewelry; some noisemakers; some candy (green, of course); some bubbles (Glinda loves them, after all, and we don't want to completely leave her out of the celebration!). And, of course, a magic wand for everybody.

 

Of course, since this was to be a special birthday, we also needed to commission a special cake. Luckily, my friend Lexie is quite talented at making fancy cakes. She made Lorelai's "De-Cake-Inator," the Dr. Doofenschmirtz cake, for her eighth birthday. I thought it would be fun to see her at work putting together a very different kind of birthday cake.

After checking out several ideas on Pinterest, Lexie and I decided a simple tiered cake with a yellow-brick-road pattern would be best. This cake looks simpler than the "De-Cake-Inator," but was more complicated to put together (more fondant with more color variety! More large pieces! etc.). Here's how the whole thing came together, in pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved watching Lexie work through each step and explain everything to me. I learned a lot about fancy cake decorating that I'd never known before (You have to insert wooden rods into the cake to help it hold its shape! You glue pieces of fondant together with vanilla! etc.). She did a wonderful job molding the adorable little poppies and ruby slippers:

I got to make the hat on top of the cake, though! It looked...not terrible? I dunno, you be the judge. At any rate, it felt satisfying to contribute to the cake in some way.

The (gorgeous) finished product

Thanks again, Lexie, for the amazing cake!!

We'd originally planned to have the party at our nearby park; unfortunately, the morning of the party dawned cloudy and quite cold (for Arizona, that is!). We decided last-minute to hold the party at our house; luckily, the house wasn't a total mess, so switching gears didn't feel quite so difficult. This proved to be a smart move; there were scattered, ice-cold showers all morning. It was much cozier inside! The only downside was that I'd "underplanned" the activities and games, reasoning that the kids would spend much of their time playing on the playground. Oh well, thank goodness for Netflix; we killed a little time by watching the Wizard of Oz-themed episode, "The Wizard Of Odd."

At least the kids had a great time decorating their hats. It was neat to see all the different styles and designs everyone came up with.

And the pinata was still a big "hit" (pun intended), even if was in our backyard and not in a park.

 

 

 

 

 The pinata had a picture of the "Wizard Of Oz" on one side (since he was basically the villain in Wicked, it made sense to whack at him--and with a broom, no less!).

Inside, the pinata was filled with Skittles candy ("taste the rainbow," get it??).

She's "defying gravity"

In between all that action, each of the kids took turns making cool poses with a broomstick and getting their pictures taken.

Oh, and they also watched Celeste open her many many presents. She was one lucky girl this year, and she got a lot of great crafts and toys that she is already putting to good use.

For lunch, we offered several "green" options, like chicken roll-ups (with spinach wraps, of course); a mostly-green-vegetable platter with ranch dip; and of course, some "green elixir"...

All in all, it was a good birthday party. Even if it was indoors, the kids had a lot of fun one with another and there were no major issues. It was a fun way to spend a December morning!

Once the party ended and everyone went home, we had a few hours to crash before heading to our LDS ward's annual Christmas party! Whew, busy day. Luckily, the ward party was much more laid-back than last year's over-the-top, super-amazing Who-ville Christmas bash. Nope, this year, all we did was listen to a short musical program in the chapel interspersed with a few talks on the Savior. Then we all retired to the gym to eat our ham dinner. That was it. But it was great; it was nice to relax a bit and chat with friends, instead of wait in a roller-coaster line with your kids and trundle out hundreds of pudding cups. Every so often, a Christmas party needs to be more mellow, and I'm glad this was the year our ward chose that option!

The next morning before church, we celebrated Celeste's actual birthday! She got a new scooter, a silver necklace, and some new clothes, among other things. Her best birthday present, though, is still to come...she's chosen to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That is just a few weeks away!

I am so proud of my grown-up talented daughter. She is still a giddy chatterbox, but she has grown more thoughtful and helpful over the years as well. She has a strong testimony of the church and regularly bears her testimony of the reality of Jesus Christ (both to her family and to our ward during fast and testimony meetings!). She is imaginative, driven, and fun, and she is a loyal, devoted friend and sister. I love Celeste so much and can't imagine my life without her.