This girl loves to play Candyland. She calls is "Candy Lion" and for months before she turned three, she told anyone that would listen that she was "gonna be free at my Candy Lion party."
So after months of preparation and anticipation, the day finally arrived and she was ready to celebrate!
And so were the rest of us!
The buffet table was a trip around the Candyland board.
The first step was to figure out all the places those little gingerbread guys have to go and then find some kind of food to go with it! As much fun as it would have been to fill up on all the sweet deliciousness that Candyland has to offer, I knew we'd be better off (for so many reasons) with not-so-many sweets. So bear with me as I get creative with our destinations along the rainbow Candyland path.
The first stop..well, I guess it's the start...is the Gingerbread Tree. And if you're lucky enough to draw a single orange card on your first turn, you get to head right up Gingerbread Pass.
{this is her version of the Gingerbread Tree..she drew what I did every step of the way}
Because the first thing you do is choose your color, we chose to offer gingerbread game piece cookies in every color. (This was my first experiment with royal icing and cut out cookies so don't look too close. Despite the zillions of tutorials I watched, I still had trouble getting the consistency right. Who knew there was such a science to 15-second consistency and piping consistency royal icing?)
If you miss gingerbread pass and have to take the long route, your next stop is the Peppermint Forest where Mr. Mint lives. Instead of hooked candy, we opted for red and white veggie (tomatoes and cauliflower) kabobs.
Next along the path is Gumdrop Mountain. We all know gumdrops come in a rainbow assortment of color so our version of Gumdrop Mountain was a mountain of rainbow fruit cups.
Evie's favorite stop is Peanut Acres where Grandma Nutt lives. If you stopped by Peanut Acres at the party, you'd find mini peanut butter pancakes topped with a slice of banana. I used washi tape to make the simple flags that held the stacks together.
Next along the path is Lollipop Woods. Ham and cheese pinwheels were substituted for sugary lollipops, but had the same round look. Some pipe cleaner lollipops ensured nobody would wonder where they were.
Princess Frostine resides at Snowflake Lake. Our lake was made of blue raspberry Jell-o, topped with cool whip and silver sprinkles (because snowflake sprinkles are impossible to find in April).
The final stop before Candy Castle is the Chocolate Swamp. Sure our guests would wind up parched at some point, we quenched their thirst with chocolate milk.
And finally we get to Candy Castle! Second only to playing a few rounds of Candy Land, watching cake decorating tutorials is one of Evie's favorite things to do. So a combination of tutorials from MyCupckakeAddiction and CookiesCupcakesandCardio, as well as a "candy land cake" search on Pinterest, inspired our own version of Candy Castle.
What's a Candyland cake without a rainbow surprise inside?
Evie's guests started their candy adventure with a life-size (albeit short) version of candy path and were greeted by all of Candyland's happy residents.
Guests ate among rainbows of colors and candy adorning the table.
When everyone had their fill of the Candyland goodies, we headed outside for games. The Lollipop Toss had contenders tossing as many suckers into a bucket as they could in one minute. Any that went in, they got to keep!
The second game was Pin the Cherry on the Ice Cream. Everyone got a cherry with their name on it, spun in circles to match their age and then stumbled toward the ice cream. As you can see, some were dizzier than others.
When we were all played out, we headed inside for cake and ice cream. Evie waited patiently while everyone sang Happy Birthday...
then excitedly blew out the 3 glowing candles on her cake.
The rest of the day was full of running outside with friends, playing in the water and all the excitement you can fit in one day when you're three.
We are so blessed to have this little girl as part of our family; the one who evens us out, who makes us laugh, who shows us how enjoyable and exciting every day is, who has a kind word and big hug for anyone.
And just in case you're wondering what in the world we did with all that candy...
