Mia’s 4th Birthday: The Farm Party

After spending a couple of weeks in the summer with my husband and daughters in our family “farm house” in Zai, a slightly mountainous, area of Jordan. I was inspired to share the joy that the girls felt when they were running freely in the great outdoors with Mia’s friends… The beauty of the nature inspired us to create; making freshly baked waffles in the early morning and then basking in the sun while the children splashed in their little splash pool on the grass (the actual pool is always far too cold to venture into) and then lazily whipping up a hearty lunch using some garden ingredients. One day we even went so far as collecting pine seeds and making some really fresh pesto with the basil we had just picked from our herb and veggie garden.

So then the preparations began, and first thing’s first, the invite that sets the tone of the party, as always, I prefer light pastels for the girls… well because anything in pastels is cuter! I chose a customized printable theme which I purchased on Etsy from the Three Little Monkeys Studio. The owner, Gretchen, was beyond helpful! The package included a birthday banner, cupcake toppers, birthday poster, food labels, food cones, etc.)

I then started with the all-too-essential piñata, which I made from a large board of corrugated cardboard (available at the Istiklal Library) which I covered with red streamers (available at Party in a Box), I frilled the edges of before I stuck them onto the box with craft glue. I then opened a small hatch in the bottom and strung ribbons through, only one was knotted for it to be a pull-string piñata. Then my anti-candy dilemma of what to fill it with began… I settled for organic lollipops and kids Digestive character biscuits.

You can’t have a farm party without the animals! So, I created a little petting zoo by borrowing some goats from a farm near-by, we also had wanted to get egg-laying-chickens and some rabbits for the farm so we invested in a few chickens (which we later found out were mostly roosters), and our friends were kind enough to give us 4 rabbits. We were all set for a day of fun!

I was lucky enough to stumble upon a page recommendation on Facebook for a wonderful photographer, Natalia of Studio 1817 Photography, who specializes in family portraits but made an exception and came to Mia’s birthday after I lured her in with descriptions of the landscape; now I can’t imagine having a birthday for my kids without her capturing those special moments…

In my constant endeavour to market healthy food to kids, I used the cones in the printables package for vegetables with a yoghurt-labneh dip which were a tremendous hit.

As for my favorite part of every birthday, the desserts; I chose to make some sugar cookies, and brownie cupcakes. The main cake was a buttermilk chocolate cake with a triple chocolate frosting and the piggy mud cake was a vanilla sponge with chocolate fudge sauce decorated with KitKat and fondant piggies.

The devil is in the detail, yes, I did go as far as hand-dipping the forks in pink paint and hand-stamping them… Pink cutlery, plates & napkins from Party in a Box.

I ordered the party favors from Amazon, the kids loved the animal hats which they wore as party hats and the giveaways were barnyard boxes with animal themed mini toys.

Afterall, Mia did enjoy her birthday after a few birthday cake tears and her friends enjoyed it too… It is worth mentioning that Mia asked her friends to make a donation to the orphans instead of her gifts, which made her mommy and daddy really proud.