Our Baking Party: Activities

We've got the post-party blues... but going through the party pictures definitely helps to cheer us up!  In addition to the nice comments I've gotten from readers, I've received some nice emails from moms whose kids attended the party which really means a lot.  When I hear "My daughter had a blast" that makes it all worth it!

If anyone missed it, here is part 1 from our Baking Party.  Now, I'll run down the activities we did.

CHEF HAT AND APRON DECORATING:
When the girls arrived, they were given a hat and apron to decorate.  These girls were so crafty and really serious about making their aprons look colorful!

COOKIE MAKING:
Once the girls were dressed up in their hats and aprons--we were ready to bake! I had two stations in the kitchen.  At the kitchen table we rolled out and decorated sugar cookies. They could choose M&Ms, small round hard candies or sprinkles to decorate their cookies.  A couple of tips: Pre-make the cookie dough. Have paper plates with each child's name on them ready so the kids can put their finished cookies on their plate.  This way the cookies will be easy to track before you put them in the oven.  Have help! I had two other ladies help me out.

Here is some of the finished product!

Party tip:  Use small baking pans to better track everyone's cookies.  You can see my post-its.  Each post-it represented one pan with whose cookies were on it.  Once I transferred the cookies to the cooling rack, the post-it got moved over as well.

CAKE DECORATING:
At the kitchen island, the girls decorated cute mini tiered cakes.  I made them in advance with this great pan I found here.

I love that most of the girls kept their hats on!  Party Tip: Again, give each child one cake on a plate with their name on it.  They then got their decorated cake when we sang Happy Birthday.  So, they enjoyed the cake and a piece of the cookie birthday pie.

Some of the finished masterpieces!  Aren't they great?!

BAKE-OFF! OBSTACLE COURSE:
To work up their appetites, I wanted to get the girls moving--so I set up a baking themed obstacle course in the backyard.  I have to admit, some were shy at first, but once they saw a few do it--many of them did it again and again!

They started on the course hopping in "flour sacks."

Then they had to get at least one ball in the muffin tin in the "Muffin Toss."

Next, they had to hop through the "Baker's Twine." Then balance an egg on a spoon to the final station...

I think this was the motivator to do the course for everyone: the Mixer (Trampoline)!  They got a minute on the trampoline, before running to the end.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY:
We all ran inside from the heat (It was 92 degrees that day!) and enjoyed some milk, the cake and cookie pie while we sang Happy Birthday.  Then each girl took a turn to "shop" the party favor table.

Each girl went home with a bakery box full of goodies: oven mitt, milk carton (filled with gummy bears), "pastry bag" (cotton candy), egg (filled with a lip gloss ring), their apron, hat and mini rolling pin.  We then rushed through the presents.... and it was all over.

The party was just over 2 1/2 hours.  That included a couple of moments where we let the girls just play so we could clean up and bake the cookies.  Taking everything into consideration, it all went pretty smoothly!

I'm already thinking about next year's!  It's so hard not to!

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