Hey hey! It's Monday, and my little one's birthday. Not be confused with her party, which was on Saturday. She was confused by cards telling her she'd turned 4 - because that wasn't happening 'til today. So finally, today around 2:30 am, when she was up because my poor lady's got insomnia, Lou turned 4. But let's talk about the party. And fair warning: this post is long.

That's supposed to be an Empire State Building Birthday Cake.

The whole thing started when Lou requested a purple Empire State Building cake. Despite my eternal optimism, I was not sure that was feasible. But I kept thinking about it, and figured I could rig something up. So that black thing is the ESB. I learned all about making cakes for this - that sucker's got an internal support system, a crumb coat, about three inches of icing and some edible spray paint, because that exists. I think it actually looked better in person - maybe you concentrated less on the listing to one side? - but it was touch and go for a while. Until the party actually started, Lou was maintaining that it did not look like the Empire State Building. But when our first guests arrived, she showed them cake and said, "Look! It's the Empire State Building! My mommy made it." And I cried. A little. I'm very emotional these days.

So, in my book, the cake was a total success. But, I made cupcakes too, for two reasons: First, the aforementioned internal support system consists of wooden pegs I cut to size with a hack saw, and I wasn't super stoked to give kids a piece of cake with those in there (though I know simply removing those posts is how this works in normal giant cake life). And two, we had a couple guests with egg allergies, so we experimented with an egg-free cupcake recipe that turned out super yummy. I'll share more on both tomorrow.

The food we kept really simple, but did pay homage to the theme with bagel chips, pretzels (both snack-sized, in those little plastic baggies and real-deal, which, paradoxically enough, my sis-in-law brought in from Philly), and apples. The veggies were just because it's not really a party without crudite. And not pictured: a million pizzas. I did a quick pizza calculation of three slices per person for 30 guests and ended up at 10 pizzas. That seemed reasonable...until you remember that half of the guests were under 3 feet tall. So we had a ton of pizza. Our freezer and fridge are overflowing. There are worse problems to have.

Then there was entertainment. We went with three different games: I Heart NY Bingo, NY Photo Booth and Subway Twister.

Let's start with Bingo, as it was the most successful at the party. I'm so sorry, but I have no photos of actually playing it; once things got started it was tough to snap a ton of pics, and I was actually calling the Bingo. But anyway, here's the gist. Our guests ranged from under 2 - 5 1/2, so I was looking for something everyone might find entertaining. I came up with Bingo, and initially, I was just going to make the cards myself. I made the cards using Microsoft Publisher, and that couldn't have been easier or simpler. But then I needed the actual filler, and I knew that generating 15 unique cards, each with 25 places for images, was not the way I wanted to spend my time. But just printing out the cards and adding some stickers would work - and kids love stickers! I found a bunch of stickers that were appropriate enough for an NYC party theme and was about to settle down to a TV-filled night of making the cards when it occurred to me that kids really like putting stickers on things. So instead of doing it for them, I cut out groups of stickers and apportioned 25 stickers and a blank bingo card into these cute party favor bags (Target, $1 Spot), and then made myself a list of all the images so I could call them out for the game.

When it came time, first the kids made their own bingo cards, and then we played actual bingo. I just cut up little squares of paper to use as Bingo markers for when an image, like hot dog stand or party hat, was called. We had a little basket of prizes (bubbles, Frozen rings, tattoos, bouncy balls, etc.) that each kid got to pick from as they got Bingo. And since I was calling the game, and there was no chance involved, every kid got Bingo. For the win. This is obviously super customizable, and though our game was a tiny bit chaotic, I still thought the kids were into it, and that it worked for a pretty broad age range.

Next up: Photo Booth

This didn't go over quite as well as I thought it might, because I just assumed kids love dress up. Which they do, but a bunch were already decked out in Lou's large collection of princess gear (see above, right) and so were less interested in changing into a pizza maker for a photo. But the idea is good, and I think great for older kids. I just grouped together a bunch of NYC-ish costumes: doctor, firefighter, police officer, chef, pizza maker, Godzilla, Statue of Liberty - with some props, and then drew a city scape on some black wrapping paper for a backdrop. Really easy, and really, really cute (I mean c'mon, the activist doctor! Godzilla!). Just not that big a hit among a bunch of amped up little kids who were already perfectly entertained just playing with Lou's toys and didn't feel like pausing for a photo shoot. For older kids though, I'd say go for something like this. Fun fun.

And finally: NYC Subway Twister

If you're not familiar with the NYC Subway system, the signs look like this:

And what do those little Twister circles look like to you? Originally, I was headed in more of an NYC subway direction for the whole theme, and I thought making this to use as a tablecloth could be cool. But as we settled more on I Love NY (and Lou, Too!), I figured we could just play the game. Twister runs about $12, and I just cut out letters from white contact paper I had on hand. Lou affixed the letters, and then, after things had died down quite a bit, my sister played with Lou and her bestie. It was adorable. We had too many kids to play when everyone was here, but looking forward, I can definitely see having two or three games set up at once and setting up a championship bracket. As one does.

Finally, we did party favors. I've never done party favors before, because I'm big on not spending money on crap that no parent wants to take into their house anyway. But, we've been to parties where the favors were legit lovely things that Lou really treasures, and I started rethinking. It does seem like a nice gesture - especially to the parents who've given up their Saturday afternoon - so we went small, but still hopefully appreciated. I found a bunch of NYC vehicle sets on Amazon (police, maintenance and fire), so each kid got one or two. (We had a couple wee siblings for whom we got more age-appropriate cars, too).

DIY Chocolate Empire State Building Lollipops

Then we made chocolate Empire State Building lollipops using this mold, and added in some Frozen and Cars tattoos to round things off. I was initially planning to offload our still-gigantic Halloween lollipop stash into these bags as well, but I forgot. Ah well. And the bags are obviously hand-lettered, with a heart sticker for good measure. Coming as it does on Groundhog's Day, Lou's birthday is a good time to take advantage of both all the black and white Super Bowl party gear and all the Valentine's Day stuff, so it was easy to find straws and stickers and even heart-shaped balloons to drive home the theme.

Ah. Almost burning the house down in the name of a good birthday wish.

And that's the whole party. Tonight is Lou's birthday dinner. Requested: Mac n' Cheese and Crackers and Green Beans. Done baby. You deserve it. f you read all the way through, thanks! It was a fun party, and I'm so glad we did it. Check in tomorrow if you're interested in cake!