Bucket List: Cookie Decorating Party!

 Kortland's first bucket list item was to have a Cookie Decorating Party. As I said in the post about the Christmas Bucket List, when it's a big activity, you don't have to do it the same day that it is drawn out of the bucket. Give yourself a few days to plan {we gave ourselves three} and go from there.

Now, a little information to give you some perspective: I am clearly NUTS.

Kort wanted to invite a bunch of kids from his class. Like, ten of them. I said no. This is because I really don't think it's appropriate to invite roughly half of his class to a party and leave the rest of the class feeling left out. We've all been in the shoes of "the uninvited" at some point or another, and it doesn't feel good. I just didn't want to feel responsible for having a party {which is intended to create fun and good feelings} that made a dozen kids feel bad about themselves. The uninvited kids are going to tell themselves something destructive in order to explain why their names were omitted from the guest list. They will say to themselves "I didn't get invited because I'm too fat, or too skinny, or too shy, or too loud, or not funny, or not pretty, or not smart, or sort of smelly with too many missing teeth {Oh wait, scratch that last one, have you seen second graders? All of them have too many missing teeth, 7-year-old mouths are downright freaky!}.

My anxiety kicks into high gear as I realize that my little party guest list, if not executed with care, will inevitably be responsible for 20% of all cases of  anorexia, bulimia, overeating, and promiscuity in Springville High's Class of 2020! This is a consequence that I simply cannot live with.  So, I told Kort that we really should just invite kids from the ward and neighborhood and leave the whole school thing out of it...

Well, he really wanted to invite his class. Like, bad. Like, we kept talking about it, and he kept looking at me with those big blue eyes and saying "Mom, PUH-LEASE!!!"

And I thought - "Hey, this party is for him, I'm just going to throw caution to the wind and let him invite his class." That's right. You read that correctly. His. Entire. Class. I also thought to myself, "It's not like everyone will come...I mean, usually half of all of the people invited to any given event will show up, so, like, 15 kids will show up...it will be fine. Then we invited our neighborhood kids too. {Just to review, I have already copped to being certifiable.}

So, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. on the day of the party and baked over 200 cookies. 

{Hint for your own party: DO THIS THE DAY BEFORE! What was I thinking?!}

And it's a good thing I made over 200, 

because 30 kids showed up!  

Yikes! 

Thank you so much to the lovely moms who stayed to help out! 

You were lifesavers!

And I decorated a sassy little holiday table.

One of my favorite moments?

When Kort came in and saw his table that morning and said:

"Wow! I can't wait until this place is PACKED!"

Ha ha! He is so much like his mom.

Table Decoration Costs:

Two Icy Blue {plastic}Table Cloths - $1.50 each. {$3.00 total}

Red Napkins {used here as place mats} - $1.50 for 24 {$1.50 total}

Two Packages of Icy Blue Paper Plates - $1:50 each. {$3.00 total}

Two Bags of Peppermint Candies - $1.00 each {$2.00 total}

{All from Wal-Mart.}

So, it cost me just under Ten Dollars total for table decorations! 

{That's pretty darn good, right?}

I have to take a moment to gush about this awesome pre-made frosting by Betty Crocker. It is unstinkinbelievable! Now, to clarify, I made my own cream cheese frosting for kids to use as the main layer of frosting, but I don't have decorative tips and pastry bags of my own, {hint, hint, Santa}so this was a quick solution. CANNOT say enough about how awesome these were. The kids totally rocked them and made the cutest designs and very little mess. At $2.88 a piece, they were worth every penny!

I loved these festive snowflake sprinkles!

Yeah, some of the cookies were a little toasty! {Isn't that a lovely Christmas word for overdone?} Can you tell that I am just getting a handle on the whole "baking thing?"

Yeah, 200 some odd cookies... took forever! {There were three platters like this in all.}

Another favorite part of the day? Seeing the creativity of these kids! Their cookies were awesome!

Best/Most Popular decorating item on the table?

MARSHMALLOWS!

They all started creating marshmallow sky scrapers {with the use of frosting as mortar between each mallow} that shot up out of their cookies! It was so cute! They looked like the kind of thing that little Hoo-Children from Hooville would make.

{Above: Kort's Cookies}

Will I invite thirty  kids again next year?
Maybe {but probably not.}

Best things about inviting 30 kids?
*No cookies left! {Yay for being able to button my jeans for the first time since giving birth to Tennyson!}
*When they all go home! ha ha! {But seriously, having 30 kids in your house sure makes your life feel spacious and peaceful when all is said and done.}


What SAVED the day for me?
Christmas music!
I can't even feel stressed when Christmas music is floating through the house. It was the perfect thing to keep me calm, happy, and focused. I use music this way a lot. The 80s mix the hubs put on my ipod is also a huge lifesaver when I'm working hard, and on a deadline!

Hope you enjoyed reviewing my ridiculous debut cookie party as much as I enjoyed putting it together! Thanks for stopping in.

In case anyone is interested, I will be posting my sugar cookie recipe {which is awesome} and the cream cheese frosting recipe{which is awesome-r} in a post of their own very soon!