Pottery and polka-dots: a celebration of Six

Yesterday, we had a birthday party for a very special little girl who is enjoying her last day as a five-year-old right now.

This was the first time we did Mallory's birthday party away from home. I have to admit, it was really easy. We coordinated the invitations, balloons, food and drink, and party favours, and they did the rest. I did really enjoy not having to clean up both before AND after the party.

The party was at our local pottery-painting studio, which didn't open all that long ago. Since we don't have a wide range of options as far as birthday locations go, I was happy to see them come to town. I don't know how much foot traffic they see through the week, but yesterday our party was back-to-back with at least two others.

The kids made a commemorative plate, with Mallory's handprint and the thumbprint of all of our guests, and then they each got to choose a piece to paint from this wall of unfinished ceramics.

The pieces will be fired this week and we'll pick them up on Friday to deliver to her friends.

Mallory digs crafty stuff, and especially anything that involves painting, so my fears that the group may have been on the young side were really unfounded. She loved it. 

Liam loved it too, but I think he was so afraid of messing up his perfect masterpiece that he didn't do what he originally planned to do with it - he took his hockey puck coin bank (of course) and painted it black and drew on a small NHL logo. The end. I thought he was going to do something a lot wilder and crazier, but I know all too well how paralyzing the perfectionist tendency can be.

We opened presents before we had cake, to allow one straggler a little more time to finish her project up.

Mallory received lots of wonderful gifts. Most of them were Barbie-themed; that's still her big 'thing'. She also got some Monster High dolls (for when she is ready to move onto that) and some crafty stuff, including a gift card to the craft store. That's a shopping trip she is really looking forward to!

At Mallory's request we had 'vanilla cupcakes with homemade icing'. She has really been underscoring the 'homemade icing' part. Last year when we made the rainbow cakes in a jar, I used a can of Duncan Hines frosting to save some time, and she didn't like it and won't let me forget it. I use Amy Sedaris' vanilla cupcake recipe and my own winging-it icing, and these things are like crack to me. I may have eaten four of them yesterday. Blech.

All in all, I'd say Mallory had a pretty good day.

Happy birthday, sweetie girl. You are so loved.