Charlie's Penguin Party

Spooktacular Update: Get your final votes in! The voting will end tomorrow night (Wednesday). Be sure to check out Molly's last minute entry here. It's pretty fantastic. Remember, it's not too late to vote for your favorite Batty for Candy display!

In other news, this is Penguin-y:

Photo by Charlie.

He is Charlie's beloved stuffed penguin, and this relationship has led to a love of all things Penguin at our house.

Hence, Charlie requested a Penguin party for his fifth birthday. I decided I could work with that. Oh yes, I could work with that:

Greg was right--I should have incorporated him into my display!

This was Charlie's year for a smallish, at home party. While these parties always cost as much as big at-a-place parties and demand more work, I think the prep is fun. On an every-other-year-basis. Charlie helped me come up with games and made his own decorations:


I made these cute penguin balloons, but the balloons were from Safeway and they crapped out on me before the party even began.

Luckily penguin colors matched my display.

Here's our igloo:

Igloos have nothing to do with penguins.

Charlie was adamant that we play a game where little penguins are frozen in ice and have to be rescued. I was wary but went with it. It was the highlight of the party.

Note: I usually don't post pictures of other people's kids--let me know if you don't want your kid's picture in this post!

Then they built sugar cube igloos for those penguins:

We played some games like waddling with a penguin egg:

And after all of that there was still an hour left. So in desperation I read a penguin book.

It was a raging party.

The cake was one of my finest--not to be confused with my worst. Costco made it but I decorated it.


Tyler's contribution was the meticulously crafted igloo for the cake. He even carved individual sugar cubes.

The man loves this sort of project.

I have to say I don't love Costco's white frosting. I sacrificed taste for cake appearance. A bonehead move indeed.


Charlie thought it was the bomb though. And that guy can melt my arctic heart on even the frostiest of days.