another celebration On the books while sheltered in place.
i was concerned on how we were going to celebrate hc’s birthday, with us being quarantined and no place to go to celebrate, let alone shopping for decorative supplies to create some sort of festive environment. i couldn’t order a cake from the place i wanted to be delivered and i wasn’t heading out to get it. i couldn’t order balloons from the party shop because they were closed. i couldn’t get a yard sign company to come out to decorate the front of our house because everyone else was doing it and they were booked until may. i couldn’t order anything on amazon to arrive on time because they were prioritizing necessary shipments first.
so, here i was…scrambling to figure things out as his birth date came closer and closer. i finally somewhat hashed it out in my head and some things just fell into place! i texted the hub’s bestie’s wife, carrie, and asked her if her husband, dave, could help me gather everyone for a zoom birthday drink call with hc. dave was more than happy to help! he group texted everyone and we all coordinated a time and i set up a meeting slot for all the boys to jump on to surprise hc!
that day, i homeschooled the babes but had a ‘shorter’ day although learning is non stop, right?! we then had a home economics class – we baked vanilla cupcakes from scratch. that wasn’t my intent, as i was positive i had cupcake mix in the cabinet but after a thorough search, i did not. the girls helped me with gathering the ingredients and decorating! oh my, they had so much fun creating works of art! i dragged out my box of vintage cake toppers and the girls went to town topping off each cupcake with all sorts of odd figurines. hahaha!
after the baking, we decorated the house! we hung happy birthday banners, paper tassels, pulled out party hats and the girls helped me create the paper sign to hang outside! once the inside was decorated, the balloon garland we ordered arrived! yayyyy! it was gorgeous! it came from float416…an independent shop in la grange! kristina is so talented and i absolutely love her work! she created the most beautiful balloon garland and dropped it off for us. we were so grateful!
now the outside decorating i did myself. i hung the balloon garland from the top of the front post to the bottom and hung the happy birthday sign across the front walk to our bay window. oh it looked so pretty!
once everything was set, the girls called dada upstairs to surprise him! i then started dinner, chicken parmesan with pasta, and afterwards, cleaned everything up and got ready to surprise him with the zoom call. i had to pull the iPad away from olive but filled her in on the secret. what a mistake! she tried to whisper but she was.so.loud! gosh, she almost blew it! i logged in and within a few minutes, i had 5 people on the call {we were expecting 8 or 9 people to join} but i felt that was enough and i couldn’t wait to surprise him! he was still sitting at the dining room table when we walked over and gave him the iPad and yelled surprise! happy birthday!
he was so pleasantly surprised! he was on the call for awhile. we had a family call lined up afterwards and he was having such a great time, he was late getting on the family call! in-between, he came upstairs and the girls sang happy birthday to him, ate their cupcakes and went to bed while hc joined the call with his family again.
hc’s birthday turned out wonderful! he was super happy and loved it all. i’m so happy with the limited resources, i was able to pull off a decent quarantined birthday! yay!
[decorated the house a bit for hc’s birthday!]
[ellie ate all the cupcakes she decorated. LOL]
[i have to post all the pics…they’re too cute!]
[i c a n n o t LOL]
[here’s olive eating oreo crumbs with a spoon.]
[dyyyyyying. i pulled out my vintage box of cake toppers and we had the most RANDOM items chosen. the girls did 100% of the decorating {and eating LOL} and that is why you see a bride and groom topper. olive loved it when she saw it in the box!]
xoxo