We lived to fight another day.

It was a good day. She's not asleep yet, so I really shouldn't tempt fate by typing that, but that's the kind of wild-and-crazy girl I am. At first I wasn't thrilled with the Winnie the Pooh theme. I wanted to do something cool, something like Alice in Wonderland or the circus. However, after Mr. V. pointed out that she wouldn't recognize either of those, we settled on The Hundred Acre Woods. It turned out pretty well. And should I ever have to make gum paste bumblebees again, I think I could do it without having my fingers dyed black from food-coloring for a week.

I found the template for these pooh masks here and made them into a garland. Mr. V. helped me cut them out with his Edward Scissorhands skills.

For the center piece and the favors I found a super-cute idea here. I painted "Hunny" pots with the kid's names and filled them with candy. (In gold wrappers. In retrospect, that may have been lost on the party-goers.)

For the cake I made some little beehives with the aforementioned gum paste bumblebees. They took forever and evoked some unpleasant thoughts. I'm guessing that the websites I consulted for my first gum paste experience may have meant liquid food coloring and not gel food coloring as the "paint" for the bee faces and stripes because they never dried. Somewhere in the trash they are still leaving tiny, permanent, black smudges.

I made the dessert plates look like Pooh's red balloons with some baker's twine and white adhesive labels. Cute, no? (Note that I didn't put a window in the 'reflections' on the balloons. Why do people think that every balloon is reflecting a window?)

I put red balloons and Pooh's door sign on our front door. "Ring Also" with a backwards N.

We had pizza and this little veggie platter I found here.

I was impressed with the "Celebration Center" on the Disney website. Lots of cute printables and fun ideas. Who knew they did free stuff too?

So aside from the fact that she had no 'quiet time' today and is up two hours past her bedtime asking for milk and stories and songs and to be tucked in AGAIN, I think it went as smoothly as could be expected for a three-year-old's birthday. Which is to say, everyone lived.