her 3rd birthday party

Because the only thing our daughter wanted for her 3rd birthday was a Hello Kitty cake, and since our close friends had been planning to spend the night at our place that time, Hubby and I decided to invite my sister, our ET barkada, and Caila’s godparents and have a small celebration at home on the 2nd of March.

Since it was a very small gathering, we just sent the invitation by e-mail, and we didn’t bother to buy any decorations or balloons. Caila was the only kid, so unlike last year, we didn’t have to spruce up the place. However, the n@wie in me still wanted to make the apartment look festive, so I just looked for some ideas on the internet and from other n@wies, printed, cut, and pasted them on our walls and doors. When my sister arrived, she had brought some Hello Kitty party cups and blow-outs to add to the theme.

As for the food, we just ordered three viands from Susana’s Catering (the same caterer we got for Caila’s birthday last year): lechon kawali, pancit malabon, and hamour with broccoli and oyster sauce. Of course you can’t serve Filipino food without rice, so we just cooked that using our ever-reliable rice cooker. Aside from the birthday cake and cupcakes which we ordered from Mummee’s Oven, I prepared fruit salad for dessert. For the drinks, we opted to serve cold water and good old Tang orange juice with ice.

The food from Susana’s was delicious as always, but again like last year, the delivery was more than an hour late. Buti na lang masarap talaga yung food, and the servings were more than what we had requested. The cake and cupcakes were yummy…and bigger than what we had expected. It was very moist, and the cake had two layers with chocolate filling in between. I swear, if I wasn’t pregnant and (Baby Tummy) didn’t have an aversion to chocolate then, I would have been able to finish an entire slice…or two…or more! It was that delicious because it wasn't too sweet and hindi nakaka-umay! As you can probably guess, when our daughter saw her much-awaited cake, she wouldn’t stop pestering us until we let her eat a part of it. That’s why we had to replace Hello Kitty’s nose with a yellow Smarties candy for the candle-blowing. To my delight, my fruit salad was a hit with all of our friends. It was actually the only thing that we didn’t have any leftovers of when the last guests left.

Anyway, enough of my blabbing. Here are a few photos of that day:

the cake (with its nose still in place)

the cake with the cupcakes

(nose has been replaced, but a cupcake is missing)

caught in the act! the birthday girl eating the missing cupcake

he just couldn't wait to taste the cake!

Unfortunately, out of all the pictures that were taken, there wasn’t a decent picture of the three of us as a family, nor were we able to take one of Caila and my sister! Augh! Nonetheless, considering we were on a tight budget and the party was practically a last minute decision, it was still a success…because what mattered was we were able to celebrate her special day with our good friends, and we made her happy by giving her the one gift she wanted (the Hello Kitty cake, of course!).