This is a picture of Ella's Kai-lan invitation. The eyes and hair were the hardest to make - lots of little cuts with tiny scissors!
Her birthday is fast approaching. She has decided to have a NiHao Kai-lan/Chinese themed party. It's really giving me a run for my money! Ella's grandma Ruthie (Chris's mom) bought her an authentic Chinese dress, fashion chopsticks to put in her hair, and a really pretty silk Chinese fan. We're having the party at Grandma Vicki's (my mom) house since everyone who is coming is from the Lagrange area.
We decided on a Kai-lan cupcake cake, finger foods, and I'm making Chinese Firecracker Candied Fruit Sticks for fun. I hand made all of the invitations myself since I enjoy scrap booking. (I make all the kids' invitations myself) I also decided to hand make a huge paper dragon that I'm going to string on fishing line out on the porch. Each child will also get a Chinese take out box full of Chinese goodies, such as chopsticks, fans, Chinese finger traps, Chinese penny candy, fortune cookies, etc. I also made handmade goodie bag tags in the shapes of Kai-lan's friends with the kids' names on them written in Chinese.
My mom and I found some great paper lanterns and a few Kai-lan decorations at the local Party & Card Outlet Store (they have the best selection!) My biggest exciting find was the Chinese take out boxes - they were kind of hard to find.
I'll post all of the pictures after the party (on July 23rd).
On Friday, we had Ella's 4th birthday party. She decided on a Ni Hao Kai-lan party. We decided on a cupcake cake with Kai-lan on it since it seemed less messy. I also made some homemade cupcakes decorated like the sun from the cartoon with marshmallow clouds. Instead of traditional treat bags, I decided on Chinese takeout boxes with the phrase "Thank you coming to my party!" in Chinese characters. I also did personalized name tags of the secondary characters for the boxes - each of the children's names were in Chinese (the picture of the pink rhino). In the boxes, I had chopsticks, fans for the girls, Chinese candies that I purchased at a local Oriental grocery store, bouncy balls for the boys, and other goodies. I made a Chinese dragon that snaked around the room and I also decorated with Chinese lanterns around the room. For eats we had the regulars - chips, hot dogs, veggie tray, etc. - but Ella's Aunt Sarah made Chinese spring rolls, her Grandma Ruthie made almond cookies, and I made Bing Tang Hulu, which is candied fruit on skewers. They didn't turn out exactly as I planned, but they were still delicious. All of the food items and eating utensils had labels in the native Chinese (you can see this better in the food picture above). Ella wore her authentic Chinese dress and chopsticks in her hair. She was so cute! She received many wonderful and thoughtful gifts from everyone...We are so blessed to have so many fabulous family members! It was such a great day, we can't wait until Grace's birthday next month!
