"The Candyland Party"

Posting a month later...not too bad.
Pre-Candyland Departure
On the actual day of Audrey's birthday Mom and Dad made her (and her brothers) German pancakes in bed. They savored it while watching cartoons. Does it get any better than that?




Candy Land or Bust, would be an appropriate title.

Audrey and I had planned her (and Chad's) "Candy Land" party for months! I spent weeks ahead of time preparing all the fabulous details {how to space and size the construction paper spaces to fit our 60'x30' cement court, layout of tables, cake design, Candy Castle and its delicious spread, cardboard cutout characters and landmarks, other games and accessories, invites and thank you note designs...}

However, nothing seemed to go as it was so fabulously planned. The week before the party I kept getting vertigo, and fell quite far behind on the detail preparation. Two days before the party I resigned to the fact that it was not going to be the grand Candy Land adventure I had been preparing for. Until, Mom called Melinda and asked for help for me. Melinda came up on Friday (my birthday) to help do all things party; I must say the list was quite long. Between Christian, Melinda, and myself we were able to color, glue, tape, and decorate all night and day to have everything ready to go with 3 hours to spare before the party started.

Just when I thought all was well and the grand party was saved...a thunder storm rolled in! we pulled all the characters and signs in so they wouldn't get ruined. Then...as we watched the rain soak our yard, and began cleaning the house up for an indoor party, Derek started puking. He threw up on the carpet, then the sink, then the couch pillow. I'd say this was the point I realized the huge dream party was unraveling pretty fast.

Then came another turn in the story. The rain poured for 2 1/2 hours, but stopped 30 minutes before party time. As a team we decided it was all or nothing; we were laying out the Candy Land board whether it was going to rain again or not. So, Christian got out the leaf blower to dry off the court as much as possible. Out went the decorations. Out went the candy table. I dried all the linens that got soaked. Out went all the cake and snacks, and we started taping squares down as fast as we could. Since we only had a half hour to set everything back up again we had to shorten the game board, but it worked out just fine.


Children came. We played "Licorice, Licorice, Lollipop" (AKA duck, duck, goose), Gum Drop Hopscotch (which Audrey and I made gumdrop shaped bean bags for), and then Candy Land! It was so much fun to watch all the kids excitedly working their way toward Candy Castle. No one was more excited to play than Audrey! As the big kids played the game all of Chad and his little friends were running back and forth from sneaking licorice at Candy Castle, to the Lollipop Woods balloons, to the "Castle tower" (a kid sized circus tent), then back for more licorice-adorable.

Derek looking a little green still at the candy table & the cute b-day girl with the treat bags.

After the mad rush and pure thrill of filling their bags with as much of their favorite candies as they wanted, we headed over to the cake and present tables. Audrey and Chad both blew out the candles on their beautiful Candy Land cake.

Audrey opened presents first and got all things Hello Kitty and Barbie. She was LOVING it. A while later we convinced Chad to open his gifts. He opened first a big bouncy ball. When he saw what it was he said, in his adorable little voice, "oh, its awesome." All the adults that heard laughed and Lynette Bodell said, "I have never heard a 2-year-old say that while opening presents at their party!"

Other highlights of the party: Chad's pants kept falling off, and even tripped him a couple times. Tristen, who is potty training, decided that the blue square just past Lolli was a good place to poop [that went over well with the 5-year-old girls].


All in all it was a great party, despite all the setbacks. We shared cake and treats and fun with lots of friends and family; we didn't get rained on; Audrey had a great birthday celebration and was so happy to be with all her friends and cousins.

Picture Details {a document must for me}

our favorite life-size (if you are 5) Candyland characters