monkey madness

Post-party madness is starting to clear out, so I'm finally taking a moment to share some of the monkey themed creations I came up with for our three-year-old monkey's birthday bash. First off, I'm really quite pleased with these banana sugar cookies. And I'm proud of the technique as well - used plastic squeeze bottles for the frosting...so much easier than piping bags. And to cut the cookies (since I didn't want to spend money on shipping + handling to buy a banana shaped cutter online), I used two different sized circle cutters to make moon shapes before cutting off the pointy ends to make them look more like bananas than moons. I like how they came out looking very Andy Warhol Velvet Underground banana screenprint.


After all the effort with the monkey head pinatas, I must say it was worth every TV watching moment (one of those projects that's perfect for working on while watching TV). Everyone loved them, they looked great on the tables (I was going to hang them from the trees but we actually needed something on the tables to keep the tablecloths in place once the breeze kicked in) and it was nice giving them to the kiddies to take home. We didn't even get around to bashing them open. The time went by so fast and before I knew it folks were heading out. When I first finished them, I thought they looked sorta goofy. But once they were out there decorating the place up, I thought they looked fine. The heads were a little lumpy here and there - so there's definitely room for improvment in my pinata-construction skills.

I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to photograph the cupcakes. Just envision mini versions of this monkey cake. Big snouts, straight line mouth and beady little frosting eyes. I hate that I didn't get more pictures, actually. You know how it is the last couple hours before your first guests arrive...frantically trying to get everything laid out, last minute food to warm up, burning the bread because you're too involved with laying out the tables, etc. By the time everything had come together, people were here and I was too pooped to walk around and snap photos. But I managed to get a few.

One final detail that I'm particualarly proud of is this decorated ice cream cone filled with lollipops. I had SO much yellow icing left over after frosting all the banana cookies that I had to come up with a use for some of it. (I always make too much icing - put too much water in, have to add more powdered sugar, too much powdered sugar, add more water, too much water....and I end up with a gallon of icing before it's finally perfect) So I dipped each cone into the icing before filling it with candy and lollipops. These were put into clear plastic bags filled with other goodies.

The kids had a ball running around the yard yelling and screaming, the adults kicked back and enjoyed their SoCals and Limeades. We served up chicken skewers, hot dogs and macaroni-n-cheese. And, of course, no party of mine would be complete without a platter of cheese and crackers. I was happy to be able to use nearly each of my wooden monkeypod bowls and platters. I'll have to photograph my collection one of these days to share. Most came from my grandma, others from relative in Hawaii and a couple we picked up on our visits to the islands.

I couldn't believe how warm the day was. That might have accounted for some of my exhaustion...that and the fact that I'm insane for throwing this kind of party while being very very pregnant! Next year...Chuck-E-Cheese. (So I say this year - but come next year, who knows what kind of hairbrain idea I'll come up with)