Pink Saturday on Universal City Walk

Last Saturday night, we celebrated Sheridan's birthday by going out to our new favorite eatery-Bubba Gump's. It is a place based on the Shrimp Company in the movie Forrest Gump. Everywhere you look, there are touches of Forrest. Sheridan thought we would be driving back up to Monterey (4 hours away) until I told her there was one only 1/2 hour away on Universal City Walk. Universal City Walk is right next to Universal Studios where they filmed Back to the Future, ET, Backdraft, Jaws and Desperate Housewives. The City Walk is Hollywood's version of Vegas. Lots of "over the top" lights and entertainment.
The bench in front of Bubba Gump's is the bus stop bench where Forrest tells his story along with his shoes, suitcase and box of chocolates. This is Lt. Dan's shirt and bandana from the movie.

If you need something from your server, just flip over the licence plate to read "Stop Forrest, Stop" and they will come by.

The kids meals are served in boats that look like the "Jenny"
Sheridan had to dance for her sundae while the rest of the family sat quietly for their chocolate chip cookie sundae. I just don't know where Sheridan gets this "need to perform" :)
After dinner, we checked out a few of the shops. This is the Hello Kitty section in Sparky's.

Now you know you're in Hollywood!
I LOVE Barbie!!

More Barbies!

"I Love Lucy" section.
Giant Pez

Fun places to shop!

Balloon Guy

Dancing fountains-the temp was about 72 that night!

Hard Rock Cafe
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Chinese Tea Party

For Sheridan's 8th birthday, we celebrated by having a Chinese Tea Party. I made a pagoda out of bamboo in the living room to hang the pink paper lanterns and fabric swags.

I used my 100 year old Haviland china and wrapped the napkins with red Midori ribbon and beaded panda ornaments.

The guests wore the pink Mandarin dresses I passed out to them on Wednesday. They looked so cute! They even wore their hair back in buns. When they arrived, the girls practiced picking up grapes with chopsticks.

"Tea" time consisted of egg rolls, raspberry lemonade, PB&J, Fluffernutters, turkey roll-ups, chocolate dipped strawberries, grapes and veggies with dill dip.

The girls loved stuffing their own panda bears. I even had little kimonos for the bears to wear.They each made a wish on a wishing star for their own bear and then made a wish for Sheridan and put it in her bear.
Yasi taught the girls how to make origami bunny rabbits.
Here are the fortunes cookies I made in the frosted take-out boxes.
When Sheridan opened her presents, each gift-giver got to sit next to her while she opened their gift. It makes the girls feel special. I asked one guest what her favorite part of the party was and she said "opening presents".
The cake was a two tiered Devil's Food cake with home made ganache. I made a double batch and whipped the first batch for filling and a crumb coat and left the second batch to drizzle over the rest. I chopped a total of 4 lbs. of bittersweet Belgium chocolate and used 1/2 gallon of heavy cream for it. The girls said it tasted like fudge. The cake was inspired by a Martha Stewart wedding cake. I even bought the sugar cherry blossoms from Wendy Kromer, the same ones that are on the Martha cake. Martha used fondant but I found kids don't usually like it. This is the Martha cake...

I love the rhinestone monogram on the top of the cake!
Sheridan and her guests had a fabulous time. All the many hours of planning paid off BIG time...it's so nice to see my daughter having such a good time with her friends.

Pre-Party Pink Saturday

My sweet baby girl turned 8 on Thursday. She requested that her mom, dad and 2 older brothers serenade her on the morning of her birthday by singing "Happy Birthday" (with the cha-cha-cha's) while she was still in bed. For breakfast, I made her monogrammed pancakes with a "S" and an "8". We even added a candle and sang- AGAIN!

The beautiful flowers arrived from my mom (she is recovery at home and will start chemo in a few weeks)
Preparations for Sheridan's Chinese Tea party are in full swing! My friend, Sandy, and I went down to Chinatown on Tuesday and I bought Mandarin dresses for Sheridan and her guests. Sheridan will wear red and her friends will be in pink.

I made tags for each girl asking them to wear the dress to the party.
I handed out the dresses on Wednesday and the girls are getting very excited about the party. At $9 each, they are making quite an impression.

Last night, we melted different colored chocolate and dipped fortune cookies in it and then dipped them in pearlized sprinkles.
I even wrote custom fortunes.

We ran out of sprinkles and then tested out some big sugar. Sheridan liked the look, so it saved me another trip to the store! I am giving each guest 6 cookies in a frosted take-out box and decorated with ribbon.

Her party is on Sunday, so be sure to check out Monday's post for more pictures!

I'm off to build a structure out of bamboo to hang the paper lanterns on over the table.

Be sure to check out more fun pink stuff at Beverly's

Lady Bumble Party

I don't know about you but when November hits I feel as if I'm sprinting through my days and can't catch my breath! My daughter is invited to 2 birthday parties this week, I delivered 2 parties for this weekend and I'm hosting a Princess party on Saturday in Beverly Hills. (Go ahead, you can be impressed!) :)

Here is my Lady Bumble Tea Party. It is a very sparkly bug party. Even girls like bugs!

Lady Bumble presides over the party with a butterfly ball over head. I made it by covering a styrofoam ball with daisies and then put sparkly butterflies fluttering around and hung it with colorful ribbons. (See the top picture)

This is a Bug Monster that the guests can stuff with fluff and take home.

This is a beautiful door banner painted by a family friend. Her mom used to babysit me and she babysits my kids.

The placemats are fabric petals and the placecard holder is shaped like a flower with marabou.

I love this bee perched atop the fake rock with all the sparkle dust.
The kids love to climb through the tunnel and feed the frog flies in a fun relay race with fly swatters.
The girls enjoy dressing up as bumble bees with wings, a black tulle tutu and a bee wand.
This party was also adapted to The Very Hungry Caterpillar book for a 2 year old. Too cute!

Have a great Pink weekend and be sure to visit the other fabulous pink finds on Beverly's blog.