Happy(Birthday) am I at Merri-Mac (E.V.’s Party!)

Each year I ask my girls for a birthday party theme — and my creative kids never disappoint.

Since E.V. is a June baby, she requested a pool party, which is what we did last year on her actual birthday. We invited a few close family friends, swam in the afternoon, and then headed to our house for pizza + cake when it began to rain. Easy-peasy! I was excited to do a pool party again — although E.V. later revealed that her “favorite part was when it rained, so let’s do that again.” Hmmmm. I can make a lot of party dreams come true, but controlling weather *might* be asking to much, haha!

This year, though, she wanted a bigger, themed pool party, and a few weeks before summer began, she declared her wishes:

I want a Merri-Mac + horses pool party!

(After a quick minute of pondering, I gave her the thumbs up. “I can handle that!”)

If you’re following along at all, you know that Emma Vance goes to an overnight summer camp in North Carolina that I also went to as a kid. Our family’s love for Merri-Mac runs deep, and we’ve been fortunate that our framilies’ girls have fallen in love as well. A summer-time, summer-camp themed party was totally up our alley!

The big drawback to this particular party theme is that I got a lot of confused looks from parents (haha), but Emma Vance was all heart eyes. (Plus our Iroquois Sister Squad knew exactly what was going on!) People just shrugged at the Princess Party bands + TrayPo + white hole thing, but Emma Vance kept squealing, “O. M. GEEEEE!” when she noticed each new thing. Afterward, I asked E.V. her favorite part of the party, and she replied that the piñata based on her camp tribe’s shield was the best. (Seriously, my kids don’t really even want a party, just a piñata.)

I enjoyed putting together all the details — but the most memorable thing from E.V.’s 7th birthday party for me was the cake. I decided that I wanted to do a cake based on her cabin and call it “Tweedle E.V.” I baked a delicious, moist chocolate cake, carved a house shape and began to frost. Then, about 75% of the way in, the roof collapsed and I realized that my moist, fudgy cake wasn’t going to hold its shape. But the day was young, so I decided that I wasn’t going to give up! Cake #2 was dense and sure to hold its shape. I frosted the cabin  and added fondant details. Perfect! It sat overnight with no issues…until it was party time.

Here in the Georgia it was about a gazillion degrees out (hello, Southern summer). I set up most of the poolside decor and then went back for the cake and few hanging items. I set the cake front and center on the food table and set about hanging the other items. Fifteen minutes into hanging, I noticed the cake was looking a little, um, melty. So I ran to get my camera from the car — and within the two minutes I spent running to and from the parking lot, the cake just…died. A horrible, hot death. I had to just laugh because there was nothing I could do, so I packed it up and sent it home to rest in the fridge and adjusted the table decor to fill in the big hole.

The good news? Our family has a tradition where after we sing “Happy Birthday,” we hand out forks to all the kids and let them demolish the cake all at once. And you know what? They didn’t care one bit that the cake “looked like Jabba the Hut” (according to Ryan)! ;)

Happy Birthday, Emma Vance!

The infamous, sad cake…

Oh, well! On to the festivities!

IROQUOIS IS #1!

Time to SWIM!!!

E.V. requested pizza for lunch…even though I offered her latest fave, Subway, haha!


When it was time for (melted) cake, we pulled it out from the fridge and all had a good laugh!

Shove family tradition: ALL the kids eat the cake (at once)!

{the aftermath}

chocolate cake // vanilla cupcakes

E.V. literally doesn’t think a party counts unless there’s a piñata…so here ya’ go sister!

Our awesome camp sent us TATOOS to celebrate!

(And this crowd had a love for face tattoos… which will hopefully fade by the time they’re all 18 and able to get real ones, haha!)


back to the pool


…and that’s a wrap!

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