Over the weekend we celebrated Violet's 7th birthday! Seven? Sigh...seven, it seems that I say it every year, how can she keep getting older? Of course, these birthdays are always bitter sweet. The getting older too quickly is sad to think about, but so fun to see how she's grown and who she is becoming.
This year Violet decided, all on her own, that she wanted to have a hot chocolate birthday party. And, before I had even begun to think about invitations or planning, she drew her own birthday invitation and then helped to design the rest with me using canva.
Adorable, right?
A hot chocolate party for a winter time birthday party is such a fun idea! And, as it turns out, we had the perfect day for it too! On Saturday we had a pretty intense snow storm, the best one of the year in fact, and in the two hours that the party was happening several inches of snow fell outside. It was cold and snowy outside, but there was a fire glowing, warm hot chocolate and lots of fun and games inside!
Of course snow falling outside doesn't give great light for taking pictures inside. Pair that with the fact that I never allow for much picture taking time during parties so I don't have a ton of great pictures to share, but it was a super fun party!
We went "candy shop"-like for the colors using brown, white, red and pink... 
I hung pictures of Violet past and present up on our door in the living room as well... 
Fortunately, seven is still not too old to be embarrassed by such things! In fact, that was one of Violet's favorite decorations, I love it too and think that this ought to be a new birthday tradition...
Speaking of birthday traditions...Red Velvet seems to have become Violet's traditional birthday cake request, plus it went nicely with the whole "theme"...
As far as the "hot cocoa" part...we served two types of hot chocolate, one traditional and one Mexican hot chocolate. It seemed as though we ought to have more than one kind for a party, right? I used this recipe for the traditional hot cocoa and this for the Mexican hot cocoa. Both were yummy separately, mixed together and mixed with coffee! Alongside the hot cocoa there were, of course, some "mix in fixins" including loads of marshmallows: chocolate covered marshmallow "lollipops", plus heart, ice cream cone, and bunny shaped marshmallows along side the go to mini marshmallows ...
Not to mention these super cute and adorable hot cocoa stirrers...mini shrinky dink versions of Violet's hot cocoa drawing!
For the fun and games part we played an "eat the marshmallow off the string" game and a "throw the marshmallows into giant mugs (that we made out of different sized cans and covered with paper)" game. We also played "musical marshmallow" which is a mix between musical chairs and hot potato...I made a marshmallow bean bag and the kids passed it around while this totally perfect song played, whoever had the marshmallow when the music was stopped was out! The kids loved this game and had so much fun with it!
We also had the kids paint their own hot cocoa mugs...
We used elmer's paint pens to do the painting...
and I printed these directions out for the kids to follow at home to keep the paint on. So far, so good, for our mugs here at home Violet and Henry's mugs look great and the paint is still on! All the kids really got into painting their own mugs and they turned out so nicely! I always love to see the results of crafty projects like these...
There were little packets of hot cocoa mix and marshmallows to send home to go along with the mugs as the kids ventured back out into the snow ...
And handmade hot chocolate party hats to wear at the party...
Which I decided to make last minute the morning of the party with the "help" of one of our kitties...
It was a great day! Violet had a blast spending her birthday with friends and family and seeing her birthday plans come to fruition. Plus, you know, cake!
And, at the end of the day, after the cleanup inside we headed outside to play in the snow. And then we topped the whole fabulous day off with a tough snowy walk to the local pub for a spontaneous birthday dinner...
I'm pretty sure this 7th birthday will be one she will always remember! I know I will!
