Rainbow Birthday Party

Haven turned 15 last week. I haven't gotten to throw a big party for Haven in a few years, so I was eager to go all out. Plus it's the first party A.P. (That's After Pinterest, which is how time will now be remembered.) Pretty much everything you are about to see was pinned on my Party board.

Let's party!

The kids got a prize if they came with strange hair colors. Several did! We also had rainbow belts, shirts, and socks!

 Decorations:

 The tissue paper pom poms on the ceiling look awesome! I want to leave them up for a while.

We got the rainbow twizzlers and put them all in jars, and then colored the water in the glasses with the flowers. The sodas were also part of the decorations since they came in so many colors!

The Food:

 Rainbow cupcakes!! These were so cool! I ordered the rainbow airheads and rainbow twizzlers from this online vendor. I used a buttercream frosting and they tasted great!

 Fruit kebobs were a big hit. The girls actually made all of these while I cut up the fruit. They all stood around and talked about how they all wanted their next parties to be rainbow parties!

Activities

 We had two main activities, melted crayon art and a pinata. The kids also played one of the dance games on Wii and played on the playground near our house.

The crayon art was a lot of fun! By the way, Aleen's Tacky Glue, Rubber Cement, and glass and ceramic glue all work for holding the crayons to the canvas! Just in case you needed to know that....

 Even the boys really got into it!

 We took the pinata down to the playground to bash, which turned out to be quite a spectacle.

 I guess this must be something the Germans don't really do because EVERYONE stopped to stare, including parents and random passersby. The teens shared the candy contents with the kids that all stood around watching the action.

The Cake

I tried marshmallow fondant, which turned out ok. It wasn't as smooth as I would have liked, but the kids all liked how it tasted. The buttercream wasn't white enough and I really wanted to be able to draw on the cake.

 Everyone added their mark to the cake.

 I love the hyphenation!

Today I had a house full of kids who feel like they need to color their hair, wear obscure clothing and listen to odd music to get attention. They get teased, looked down on and generally deal with feelings of insecurity and low self-worth. Today I had one kid say his parents don't let him be himself (which is gay), two say their parents were ready to ship them off to the states to live with relatives, and one ask to move in with us. Two of the boys gave me hugs when they left and all the kids called me Mom.

Before I cut into the cake I took the opportunity to tell them all that what's truly important in life is not what people can see on the outside, but it's what's on the inside that counts. I really want these kids to know that God loves them right now, just as they are.

As I started to cut they all started to shriek with anticipation to see what was on the inside of the cake! I have NEVER seen kids get so excited to cut into a cake! Seriously, they were screaming and there were some flailing arms! I was laughing so hard I had to put the knife down and compose myself before I could cut into it! The first slice came out and it was near pandemonium!

The rainbow cake!

I'm not the first person to make a rainbow cake, but I guess it was the first one any of them had seen! It really made the effort feel worth it though to see how excited they were!

Happy Birthday Haven!

PS. If anyone is wondering why Haven's hair changes color throughout the day, it's because she got some clip in hair extensions and she dyed part of them black to match her current hair color, and left the rest blond.