Wednesday, July 29, 2015

watermelon welcome home party!

Earlier this month, we sent our 2 older kids, Sofia and Thomas, to the same sleep-away summer camp that I attended every summer as a child. I loved the camp, looked forward to seeing my friends, being on that lake, eating candy from the tuck shop, and so many other things. I thrived so much as a camper, that I ended up spending a few summer working in the kitchen and being a counselor when I was old enough.

But sending your kids to camp for the first time is a whole different thing. I was so reluctant to send them that I didn't even sleep on that first night. I was convinced we'd get a phone call from a teary Thomas, or from a counselor, telling us one of them ended up in the hospital for something or other. Amar and I would ask ourselves, wonder what they're doing now, at least a dozen times every day. So, when Maia suggested we bake cupcakes, and maybe make some banners for when they come home, I was all over it.

Maia and I went shopping for hot pink and green poster boards, and ended up doing a lot of die-cutting and some baking to come up with this fun little watermelon welcome home:

watermelon party


When they first walked in, this is what they saw. I thought they might be too tired from the 2 hour drive home, but they lit up instantly and Thomas yelled to Sofia that there were cupcakes, and could they have one right away.

watermelon party


It's literally, a party for our little family. With just enough cupcakes and water bottles for us, to celebrate the fact that they had an amazing time away, and that we survived it. These cupcakes say: next year can happen without parental chest pains.

watermelon party


Maia and I found poster boards in hot pink and 2 different greens at our local Art store, and for 67 cents x3, we created all of the decorations.

watermelon party

I used a green copic marker to mimic the stripes on a watermelon. So easy! Let's please not talk about how melty the icing looks. I'm chalking it up to when kids *help* in the kitchen. If you're a mom with littles who like to frazzle bake with you, you're nodding right now.

watermelon party

The little banners were so fun to create! I used nesting circle dies, and cut them in half for the watermelons on each end.

watermelon party

Sometimes you just get lucky...

watermelon party


Like, when you realize that you have exactly 5 water bottles in your pantry and the bottles have a greenish tint to them. Watermelon perfect!

watermelon party


Watermelon gummy candies are my fave. I let the kids have a few each and then I slowly ate the rest of them at night, by myself, when the kids were asleep. They forgot we even had them. Bad mommy.

Also, a green copic marker can make a bowl full of limes look like teeny watermelons.

I hope you like our little watermelon welcome home!  Sofia said it cheered her up, because she was already camp-sick.

watermelon party


♥.

8 comments:

  1. Oh, how SWEET is this?!!...Love the whole watermelon theme!
    And yay for mom and dad hanging in there...I can imagine how hard it was! I get the same way when one of my kids is only gone for a few hours or so! lol ;)

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  2. Wait... we're not supposed to hide candy from them and eat it in secret?

    This is adorable, but mostly I'm so impressed you survived a week of them being away!

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  3. Oh my!! This is just the most adorable thing I have ever seen! So many fun creative things you've done here! The limes, so cute!! We save all the good stuff for when the kids are in bed too ;)

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  4. I always love your party projects, Elena!!! This is so super sweet and summery and fun!!! Awesome work!

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  5. Your watermelon party is simply adorable! The copic-drawn lines on the limes is genius! I'm sure they were so happy to come home to such a sweet surprise! :)

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  6. How wonderful! I adore your creative and fun ideas for parties!

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  7. so fun! what a sweet mom you are! the limes are my fave:)

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  8. Super cute! Couldn't pass by commenting on your mini (limes) watermelon! Now that is amazing!

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