Winter Birthday Party Ideas

You totally thought this was going to be all about Frozen, didn't you? Sorry to tell you, but I'm over it. And it's fine if you're not. I know that I'm irrationally cranky about the whole thing. I recently got into it with the teenager Build-A-Bear employee who tried to insist that Cameron's newly-acquired Build-a-My-Little-Pony needed four Elsa shoes (at $8 a shoe) to really be an accurate Elsa. I somehow managed not to go off on a tangential rant about how today's MLPs aren't even the right ones anyway and, even if they were, how ponies don't wear shoes. So, when you really think about it, bud, Princess Twilight didn't need four pairs of shoes to accurately represent another cartoon character, to whom I have another whole slew of objections. But, I let it go.

In any event, I think I meant to write about joyous, happy birthdays!!! So, what about those littles who find themselves with a winter birthday and want something other than Frozen? Well I've rounded up five fabulous winter party ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with Elsa or Anna or whatever that snowman's name is (they had to go loop in that song about a snowman in summer just to cover themselves on summer birthdays as well! gah!). So if your life has been a series of Frozen in your face lately, take a look at these for winter party inspiration!

1 // This mod, geometric penguin party is right up my alley. 

2 // A backyard winter camping party would be perfect for friends living in warmer places than us! 

3 // Cam would love this modern Nutcracker themed bash. 

4 // Love this girly gingerbread decorating party. 

5 // A simple + sweet skating party.

Grub It Up: Homemade Fruit Slurpees!

I don't know about your kiddos, but we LOVE slurpees. There's a 7-11 right by our dry cleaners and whenever we do a pickup/dropoff with mom, we beg and plead for some of those brain-freezing drinks. They are fine every once in a while, mom says, but apparently there's not a whole lot of healthy in there. So when we put "make fruity drinks" on our Summer Bucket List, mom knew she wanted to try to make some healthier fruit slurpees. And since everyone seems to be pulling down pounds of picked fruit this week, we thought it would be a good time to try it. We used organic frozen fruit, but you can clean, chop and freeze anything you pick and then use it in the drink. And while lemonade still has sugar in it, you can use a variety sweetened without high fructose corn syrup that's a bit healthier (we like Newman's). Happy brain freeze!

Homemade Fruit Slurpees

makes 2 servings

(based off of this Babble recipe)

Ingredients

- 2 cups lemonade

- 1 1/2 cups ice 

- 1/2 cup frozen fruit (we used a tropical mix and separated the strawberries from the mango/pineapple/banana to make pretty layers)

Directions

1. If you want to make a layered drink, separate frozen fruit into color groups.

2. Blend 1 cup lemonade, 3/4 cup ice, and 1/4 cup frozen fruit together. Set aside. 

3. Blend remaining ingredients together. 

4. Spoon two frozen mixtures into layers in a glass. 

5. Drink! 

Grub It Up: Frozen Hot Chocolate

So warmer weather finally seems to have moved in, but we decided that with the On-Demand release of the much-beloved "Frozen," we needed to make a frozen treat for movie viewing (mom might have been reaching a bit since it rained ALL weekend and daddy is on a long jaunt out of town, but we weren't complaining). It's not fancy, but that means it's an easy recipe and probably a good way to use up any of that powdered hot chocolate mix you've got left from spring errr.... winter. Here's the frezeal, you'll need:

- 2 packages of single-serving hot chocolate mix

- 3 cups milk 

- 1 1/2 - 2 cups ice 

- whip cream and marshmallows 

In a blender, blend hot chocolate mix, milk and ice. Top however you'd like. Mom gave us some chocolate and vanilla macaroons, too. Yum!