The Great Emoji Birthday Party

About a month ago, I threw my very first children’s birthday party for my stepdaughter! We kindof had a party last year, in that we invited over our families at the very last minute, I cooked dinner, and her grandmother brought over a cake.  We were still moving into our new house (well, we still are moving into our new house, but it’s a bit more presentable now) and had already pulled off the world’s most inexpensive wedding.  I hadn’t had time to devote to planning an actual party.  

But I vowed that this year would be different.  

(And it was.)

I grew up as a child who always, always had a themed birthday party.  (I still have themed birthday parties, and they’re awesome, shut up.)  So I’m a firm believer that kids should have parties, and they should have themes.  Really, I just love themes.  (I blame the birthday parties.)

Kaylee has been on a slight emoji kick for the past year or so (she's pretty much claimed one half of my Femme de Bloom emoji collar clips), so I’d been working toward the idea of making her party emoji themed.  Hell, I like emojis too. (The heart eyes emoji is my spirit animal.)  The Emoji Movie was actually even than I expected.  So I started a board on my mostly-dead Pinterest dedicated to party ideas and kept my eyes peeled for emoji gifts/decorations/etc.

Then, of course, the weeks leading up to her birthday weekend coincided with my busiest weeks at work (thanks, wedding season), so I ended up not having quite as much time as I intended to go completely overboard on the themed decorations/presents/food.  

So... I only went slightly overboard. 

I picked up a bunch of emoji plates/napkins/gift bags itmes from Walmart (where I also possibly went a little overboard on gifts, but nevermind that).  I also made this cute emoji pillow from a free pattern on Ravelry, and finished it just in time for the big day! It's now joined forces with the growing legion of stuffed animals and handmade pillows on her bed.

In properly keeping with the theme, I limited the snacks to food that there are emojis for.  I don’t think anyone actually noticed this, but it pleased my internal control freak and that’s all that really matters here.  Therefore, we had pizza, chocolate chip cookies made by the birthday girl and Mark, watermelon, grapes, and strawberries.

I also made (with Kaylee's help) an emoji cake and poop emoji cupcakes!  She helped frost the face and put the eyes on the cupcakes.  She gave me a high five and declared that I had “nailed it” which pretty impressive coming from a “Nailed It!” connoisseur.

For the cake, I used this yellow cake recipe, with a basic buttercream frosting.  I scooped out two tiny bits of frosting to color for the eyes and mouth, and colored the rest as bright of a yellow as I could manage.

Pro-tip: lightly draw on the outline of the shapes you're going for before piping on the icing.  It definitely helps minimize error (unless you have a newly-seven-year-old helping you, in which case Godspeed).

For the poop emoji cupcakes, I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe that’s on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa canister.  It’s my absolute favorite, as it’s super easy and always tastes moist and delicious.  I also used this chocolate buttercream frosting, and K stuck on some edible eyeballs.  To quote my mother-in-law, “I thought they were really cute until I realized what they were.”)

In addition, I took her to Party City and let her pick out her own balloons, so I’ll just be waiting over here for my Stepmom of the Year award.

Ultimately, if you can’t be spoiled on your birthday, when can you be?