The Polka Dot Party

Joy's party was so much fun!
~ And I think I have polka dots completely out of my system now. : )
And that's a good thing since I always go a little overboard with a theme or even a school topic...

I have Google* searches on 'polka dot parties' to thank for all the fun ideas because I'm not all that creative!

Here is the polka dot pet who was ready for the party:




And the polka dot punch: (or at least it was when the ice ring melted)



The polka dot cake: (thanks to those Necco* candies)



The polka dot decorations: The polka dot banner said Happy Birthday Joy. We printed it out on the computer and glued each letter onto a large dot. And thanks to those garage sale stickers we had polka dot balloons and streamers!

It was all a lot of work but that was a big part of the fun. It made for lots of mother/daughter projects and we had fun and made memories planning all of this.

The Lord has blessed Joy with some precious girlfriends from our church. Even her Missionettes teacher came, which was so sweet.
These girls were so cute, polka dotted and polite. They were also so QUIET. We are a loud, rowdy family when we are having fun, so I was amazed at the lack of noise. : )

They enjoyed gluing buttons on the tote bags and decorating the lollipop cookies was a big hit.

Before the lunch time prayer, my hubby gave the girls a little talk. He encouraged them to keep on the path and not to stray to the right or to the left in their walk with the Lord. He asked them to help Joy in her walk too. He prayed a blessing over all of them and asked the Lord to help them to be good, godly influences on each other and he prayed some other sweet things... And the polka dot mom got all choked up and had to get a grip so that she could give lunch time instructions. : )

Here is the sweet birthday girl, who thanked us for giving her the "best birthday ever."


She is a blessing! Happy Birthday, Joy!

Here is the recipe for the lollipop cookies. They would be fun to do at Christmastime with green sprinkles and red hots.
They are easy to make and fun to decorate. I am kicking myself that I didn't get photos of the ones the girls did yesterday. They were adorable. This recipe is from Martha of course. : )
It makes 24 but we wanted our cookies large, so it made less. It took some experimenting to figure out how large was too large and made them fall off their stick... but the boys and Carlos didn't mind eating our mistakes. The recipe suggests that you roll them in colored sugar and then bake. But since we wanted to make them ahead of time and decorate, we didn't do that. We baked them plain and then had the girls frost them and add polka dot candies. Skittles, red hots, sprinkles, strawberry whoppers... (did I mention I was way into the theme) : )

Lollipop Cookies

2 3/4 cups of flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp.
2 tsp. pure vanilla
Popsicle sticks
sprinkles or sanding sugar

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat together. Add flour mixture on low speed. Roll dough into balls. Roll into sprinkles or sanding sugar. Place one and half inches apart. Insert wooden sticks. Press lightly with a glass or other flat object. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely before picking up.

~Becky