This post is long overdue, but things in the Zelaya household have been crazy. I've been going crazy that I have not been able to blog in such a long time. I have so many posts I need to write. I haven't shared the news that the girls and I got our Panamanian Residency! Woot woot!!! Man! that is seriously an entire post to tell the vicissitudes of being an immigrant properly. But we are here today to recount the joy that was celebrating Kaylee's 5th birthday. As you know, I start preparing the girls' birthday parties months ahead to do and buy a little at a time and really enjoy it and be able to make it and afford it. We were left without a stable income in February, as I told you in my last post (I would need another post to tell you more about that too). I honestly thought for the first time I would have to forgo celebrating a birthday. But the Lord was so good. Oh! Was the Lord so good!
My sister Lilly is a preschool teacher and has celebrations often and a mom gifted her a box of leftover snacks. It contained 20 Pringles cans, 20 oreo packages, and other stuff. My father in law had sent us Honduran candy with a friend that was coming to Panama, my mom gave me two Caprisun boxes leftover from a trip and somehow I had the contents of the favor bags. Rodolfo and Lilly had brought over the leftover paper at the end of the school year and a relative gave me the box from her new grill. And just like that, this party happened. God is so merciful to us even in things like this that don't really matter, but that is the kind of Father He is making sure we feel His presence even in the things we think He wouldn't care.
This post has some tutorials of some of the things in the party at the end.
My trees are making their third and last debut as the paper has faded. That tree was so so easy I could not believe it looked this good.
I was not a fan of how this Kaylee banner came out, but I had no time to redo it.
Simple but colorful, just like the trolls are!
I cannot believe this cake came out this nice. I'll post the making-off pictures at the end. It actually looks better in the to-do pics because I had finished it and decided to try to "fix" it and ended up actually making it worse somehow, but it was still nice and yummy.
We bought some troll toys at 70% discount in December. They came out so cheap most cost 2-4 dollars at the most.
My poppy cupcakes came out lovely, but I forgot I had been gifted a decent pipping bag by my lovely friend Carolina and used a ziploc instead, so the rainbow cupcakes weren't as defined as I would have liked.
You have no idea how tiring it was to make all this troll hair. How-to at the end of the post.
These jello cups were simple to make. They just required patience and time.
My mom did such a good job making these rainbow fruit cups. People loved them!
Mom gave me these bubble bottles and I personalized them with a free printable I found online. I also printed the poppy and branch heads for the favor bags that I found very cheap in a Chinese store.
I had never fallen in love with a spider before, but look at this cutie!
The satine and chanille centerpiece, like the poppy and branch in the main table, were a free internet printable.
This fluffy poms where as vexing to make as the troll hair, but they looked so adorable. Lilly got all this decoration to use in her classroom. She got the backdrop tree to use as her new door decoration too. Smart girl!
I wish I could afford cloth table covers as I did in Honduras.
This decoration was so simple and looked so good. I wish I hadn't been so lazy and done two or three streamers of each color to really make it pop. Oh well!
Another free printable found online. I loved learning how to make balloon flowers. They were harder to make than they look.
Door decoration.
Easiest photo backdrop ever. It also did a good job at covering our school abc verses that I was not ready to take down yet.
I didn't expect the girls to love these headbands so much. They weren't very pretty. I thought tulle would cost more, but I spent $1 on it for these headbands.
My mom took the time to tape each strand of this wall backdrop. She was so amazing helping with everything. She asked me to let her be more involved and help not just with financial help but with serving help. She asked me to be humble and let her serve me because that was her love language and I was keeping her from loving me like she likes. It was a lesson for both and I was so glad I had someone to rely on the entire day.
Had I had more time or started earlier, I would have made dozen of these flowers. They are so so silly, they make me smile every time I saw them. My sister felt the same way and "stole" one for her car. She says it makes her start the day with joy feeling she has a silly happy flower as a companion.
I mean, they are ugly but they are not ugly. They are scary but they are joyful. They are definitely silly!
When I saw piñatas as cloud guy I knew that was the piñata I wanted to make. Mainly because I thought it would be so easy to make, which it was and I have a how-to at the end, but because cloud guy annoys me and I was excited to see someone hit him hard on the face.
As always, the girls help me with the painting of big areas. They painted the blue sky and the green grass. Mom then had to fight them on "no more help" with the fine details.
You may remember that I live next door to my mom, so we use her living room for the tables and food, and my house for the kids' games and activities.
What is that Santa doing there? oops!
Prizes for the games!!
Craft table ready to make some hug bracelets and glitter slime!!!
Yes, this is her posing for a picture in front of her decoration. I wish she showed her real excitement on camera, but she still gets weird and refuses to look at the camera. Oh well!
My dear Jana understands trying to picture kids as this is Haydee's camera ready pose!
I love these girls!
Making hug bracelets.
Alessandro gluing cars! The boys were such troopers. I feared they would dislike the activity, but once they saw I had car, airplane, and helicopter foamy cut outs, they were on board.
Picture showing off their bracelets
Emmalee and Kaylee know their bracelets mean hug time!
Making slime.
Aren't the kids supposed to be the ones doing it? Guests at my parties are such troopers. Even using two living rooms, they are small living rooms. The party is crammed and there is little space, but no one ever complains and makes the best out of it.
Xavi really enjoyed his slime. I had bought those containers at the dollar store and just glued a troll printout to the top.
Loveliest poppy troll ever!
It would not be a troll party without a dance off.
Haydee obviously stole the show. How could she not? She was so fun to watch. That little girl is fearless taking on the big kids.
Dance off judges. I love that they were unbiased, but I wanted Haydee to win.
Emmalee loved making a Branch face!
Omar and Valentina!
My friend Jana says she is a red velvet cake snob because her mom makes the best one and none compare so she doesn't enjoy other red velvet cakes. She said she ate all my red velvet cupcake and got the thumbs up.
Ready to crack cloud guy open!
Ugh, even in piñata form cloud guy is annoying. Hit him hard, kids!
The obligatory prayer pic. I love this part. Giving praise to He Who deserves it and putting our little girl's life in His hands.
Picture time!
I love baby Adriana.
Look at that cake and frosting color match.
If you are wondering, yes! it tipped over eventually. It was a tall cake!
Someone was really, really happy with her gifts! Thank you so much!
HOW-TO PORTION OF THE POST
Ok, so this part is new to these posts. It's a little behind the scenes how-to.
Please excuse the blurry pictures. They were taken by my crappy phone and I also don't have good eyesight so I don't even realize the pics are blurry until I see them on the computer.
Let's start with the piñata.
I used to think I needed thicker cardboard from boxes for the piñata. Cereal boxes hold just fine and my piñatas are still hard to destroy by the kids.
Make two. Use the first one as a mold for the second one. Remember to put good side against good side.
Tape them together and then use the good ol´art attack glue: 1 part water and 2 parts glue and recycled paper.
It's messy so the kids can help and love it.
Just glue the seams and parts you'd like to make sure they don't fall apart. Don't forget to put a hanger inside to suspend the piñata.
Patiently cover with cut-out tissue paper. I use a brush to spread the glue and not ruin the tissue paper by getting it too wet by the glue.
Texturize if you desire.
The cut-out photo booth.
Use a pencil to outline your characters. I made the girls lie on top of the cardboard to get an idea of their height and the size of their heads and faces. I even traced their heads with a pencil. I made the cut-out of the face and made them lie again to double check it would work. This is the part were the girls were able to help and they painted the blue sky and green grass happily. It´s such a large area to paint that they tire afterwards and let me work the rest of the details.
Use a finer brush for the characters and some details.
It takes some time for it to look like something.
Have prints of what you are trying to recreate. I used color pencils for the shading and details and it looked seamless.
The tree backdrop.
Start by making the tree trunk. I use packaging paper because it is so versatile and cheap. I can't believe 3 cardboard sheets were enough. It took so time placing the different tree cutouts. Leave them in place and start gluing them in the ground lifting carefully each piece at a time until you glued the entire tree. Place the trolls and pods to see how the finished product will look but don't glue these yet.
The troll hair!
Wrap wool around your finger like so.
Make a knot in the middle. Make sure it is tight.
Cut the ends like so.
You'll have something like this.
Start combing the wool. Notice how many teeth have fallen from my comb, so make sure you use a comb you don't mind ruining. It takes a little of strength to do this. You must hold tight the wool from the other side to not pull it out of the knot with the comb. And you need to comb hard to unravel the wool and give it a hair-like look.
Once it's combed, make a second knot in the center and cut between the two knots making two pieces of hair.
You'll have something like this. Use it to decorate favor bags, bubble bottles or to make little trolls.
I shaped pipe cleaners like little feet and glued them to the hair. 
Use the same technique to make the spiders. Oh, how I wished I could have had time to make many of these critters and more from the movie. Just use a normal pom pom tutorial to make a pom, comb it to make it fluffy and use pipe cleaners for the feet. I wish I would have put the pipe cleaners in while making the pom pom. It was hard to glue the legs to the pom.
The rainbow cake.
This cake requires a lot of measuring and patience. I wish I had more cake molds so I wouldn't have to bake so much, but I only had 2, which aren't even mine. They are Carolina's.
Start by making a lot of cake batter. This was very hard because this batter had to be hand folded in to keep the air in and every time I added a color I had to be careful to do it slowly and softly to keep that air in to have a moist and fluffy cake.
Do each color, one at the time. Make sure you measure how much batter is in each container to make sure all cake levels will be the same. Fold each color carefully. I can't say this enough. It must be folded inward and by hand.
Bake each color and use a cake cutter to level each color. Put some delicious cream-cheese buttercream frosting between each level. No one wants dry cake!
Crumb-coat the cake with white frosting. Make sure to put the cake in the freezer after applying the crumb coat and waiting for it to be dry and hardened. Do a second coat of white frosting and back to the freezer for another half hour.
Use the time you wait to color the white frosting into the different colors. Make batches just like you did with the cake batter.
Use a pipping bag (or ziploc bags like I did) to make a level of each color unto the cake. Get ready to scrape. I wish I had a turntable to do this, but I didn't. Be patient while scrapping and clean your scrapper every time to not mix the levels.
Pray to God and then thank Him your cake came out so pretty even though you are a total amateur and just followed youtube tutorials.
Put some buttercream or fondant details and use a fondant topper or a toy topper. Give leftover fondant to your girls to play so they let you work. (you can see Kaylee in the back playing with fondant)
Wow, this post ran long. And it still is not over.
Kaylee Birthday Interview Age 5.
I changed the interview questions using my friend Jana's toddler interview questions. Here we go.
1. What is something mommy always says to you? Say "yes mom." She says get dressed, fold your blanket, help clean up.
2. What makes you happy? Giggling. Getting ticked.
3. What makes you sad? Discipline.
4. What makes you laugh? watching tv, getting wet.
5. How old are you? 5 years old.
6. How old is Mommy? um.... Emmalee cuts in and says 30 years old.. Kayless says 30 years old.
7. How old is Daddy? 5 years old.
8. What is your favorite thing to do? watching tv, tickling Emmalee, sobando la perra, going outside.
9. Who is your best friend? Andrea y Emmalee.
10. What do you want to be when you grow up? Um.. Get married.
11. What are you really good at? Doing school.
12. What are you not very good at? making school wrong.
13. What did you do today? I go outside in the park.
14. What is your favorite food? Um... macaroni
15. What is your favorite song? Um... the chip song. (The theme song of Netflix's Chip and Potato) She puts the song on and proceeds to sing while jumping up and down. That's the song, mom.
16. What do you want for your birthday this year? Um, presents.
17. What is your favorite animal? Um... puppies... I mean bunnies. Bunnies are my favorite animal.
18. What is love? Um.. kissing and hugging.
19. What does daddy do for work? Um... work a lot.
20. What does mommy do for work? um... do work?
20. What does mommy do for work? um... do work?
21. Where do you live? Um... what's the house called, mom? Mom says "PH". Oh, yes, PH Genesis Plaza... what comes next, mom. Emmalee cuts in: Camino Real de Bethania.
22. Where is your favorite place to go? The park.
Emmalee heard me interviewing Kaylee and wants to answer too. Here we go.
Emmalee heard me interviewing Kaylee and wants to answer too. Here we go.
1. What is something mommy always says to you? Fold your blanket, "Si, mama"
2. What makes you happy? "What makes me happy? hmmm. what makes me happy? hmmm. What makes me happy? That I play with the pup and that Kaylee is not fighting. Hm... And daddy can play with us a little.
3. What makes you sad? Hm... That Bentley bites me and when I fall and when I trip and when Bentley bites our toys.
4. What makes you laugh? Hm... I laugh because the tv because the tv has funny parts, and because funny does funny things with his face doing funny faces.
5. How old are you? 6 years old
6. How old is Mommy? 30 years old.
7. How old is Daddy? 31 years old.
8. What is your favorite thing to do? my favorita thing to do is dance, train for beastmaster, and sing.
9. Who is your best friend? Kaylee and Andrea and Camila.
10. What do you want to be when you grow up? I want marry, I want to dance, and do beastmaster.
11. What are you really good at? hmmm... I almost good at doing this (proceeds to do a handstand), I am good at helping people, and cleaning the house.
12. What are you not very good at? I'm not very good at doing yoga because I cry (when she has to stretch). I am not very good with my sister because we fight. I am not good at closing my jacket.
13. What did you do today? I went to the park, I played with some new friends, and I played with my bow and arrow.
14. What is your favorite food? My favorite food is hmmmm.... My favorite food is mandarina, brocoli soup, and grapes.
15. What is your favorite song? Wreck it Ralph (Zero song by Imagine Dragons) and Slaughter Race (the Julia Michaels song).
16. What do you want for your birthday this year? I want un peluche de unicorn, un horse, and makeup.
17. What is your favorite animal? an elephant, and a horse, and a cheetah.
18. What is love? love is when you like someone.
19. What does daddy do for work? He builds gadgets.
20. What does mommy do for work? She does decorations, she obeys her boss, and she looks at yoga.
20. What does mommy do for work? She does decorations, she obeys her boss, and she looks at yoga.
21. Where do you live? I live in PH Camino Real de Bethania.
22. Where is your favorite place to go? The park and school, new kinds of school, and I love going to play with new friends.
Dear Kaylee,
I can never get enough of your silliness. Baby, you have a cranky mom. Between her always dieting (which makes her extra cranky), her sleepless nights, and some sort of pain always ailing her, she is not always in a good mood. But you have the perfect weapon against my crankiness: your silliness. You just answer my moodiness with silly faces, silly noises, silly songs, silly dances, and even silly kisses (yes, even you kisses are silly. You awkwardly hold my face and kiss me with your mouth open, which I guess it more of a slobber than a kiss, or you kiss me with your nose Eskimo style). Oh baby, you make it hard for me to scold you when you look at me with your silly face. I have to remind myself to keep a straight face. You are not happy you are in kindergarten. You are very young to have started kindergarten, I mean you started the same month you turned five, but mommy felt you were ready for it. You are, but you don't like to have more work and have to do so much handwriting exercises and reading exercises. You liked it when you were done with school much faster than your sister. You still finish before her as she started first grade early too, but you know you are doing more work than you used to. You have gone leaps and bounds in your journey to learning to self-control. You still have a hard time not making angry faces when mommy calls you out for disobeying or making something wrong, and that earns you more discipline than the sole disobedience, but you are getting better at letting go of that face much quicker and changing your demeanor. You are learning not to use your squeaky squeally voice when you are upset or impatient, but we still have ways to go. You have started making drawings!! Your family drawings are hilarious. You make daddy the size of the whole page and fits us around him in the space left. I bet it is just to portray how much you love your daddy. It's funny to remember you were not a cuddly baby because cuddling is your love language now. You feel full just by having someone you can sit on while you watch some tv or take a nap. I love how you throw kisses at mom and dad: you start walking toward us and the kiss is audible in your lips all the way from wherever you are to our cheek. It's so funny. You are a little abstract painter taking great joy in painting big splashes of colors, often pink splotches. You think they are wall-worthy. I remind you you mush make a greater effort for the wall-worthiness. You don't like it, but then give me more color varied abstract art for the wall. You and your sister have the most dumbfounding likes and personalities. Your sister's personality is soft, gentle, ladylike and very feminine, but she loves blue, extreme sports, skates and bikes, basketballs and bows and arrows. Your personality is tougher, humorous, selective, silly and unpolished, but you love pink, big dresses, tutus, unicorns, rainbows, and more pink with dolls and princesses. It's so funny. You used to be more of a loner during playtime, specially at the park. Not anymore. You love being inclusive with other girls at the park, specially younger girls who might be overlooked by the older kids at the park, like the ones who now include your sister because she is the best one at the monkey bars. You can't make it past yet and enjoy joining with the other youngsters who can't either. You are careful with your friends offering your hand to help them climb or go up the stairs. You love to ask me to swing you in the baby swings, but I refuse to put you in or out of those swings. That doesn't stop you and it's one of my favorite things about you. You love the things I make for you and treat them like treasures. You play the most with the dollhouse I made and with any leftover decorations from any birthday. You were so worried about this birthday because you were not seeing mommy do lots of things. You would ask me constantly when I'd do the cake and cupcakes and decorations. You were so happy when we started working together. We really enjoyed watching the Trolls series together. You are as silly as a troll and as loving too. I see you being a very loyal friend and someone who stands up against mean girls. You finally learned how to play with the puppy being careful. You always find a way to hurt your dad when you play with him or run to him. Dad knows to cover his tender parts when you run towards him. I can't help but laugh. I love the gleam in your eyes when you learn to do something new. You love sharing with me the new things you learn. Your Spanish needs a lot of work because English is your first language. You surprise me during swimming lessons. You were not happy when you took the summer course on February. To be honest, I was surprised you made the team cut. But now you are so devoted and passionate. I can see how hard you try. Your sister felt the competitive spark when in the last competition she came in fourth and you came in second. You didn't race against each other, but your sister always comes first. It was a good lesson for all. This post could go forever talking about you, my little one. You are so amazing. You are such a joy to have in my life. You are five now, but you still wake up at 6 am to go to my room and cuddle with me until 7 am. I love those mornings just the two of us in bed were I've seen you stare into my face. I want to remember those times forever. Thank you for your love, thank you for disarming my crankiness with your sweetness and humor. Thank you for teaching me so much through watching you grow. I love you, my baby, my baby forever. May God continue His work in You. Love, mom.
Dear Kaylee,
I can never get enough of your silliness. Baby, you have a cranky mom. Between her always dieting (which makes her extra cranky), her sleepless nights, and some sort of pain always ailing her, she is not always in a good mood. But you have the perfect weapon against my crankiness: your silliness. You just answer my moodiness with silly faces, silly noises, silly songs, silly dances, and even silly kisses (yes, even you kisses are silly. You awkwardly hold my face and kiss me with your mouth open, which I guess it more of a slobber than a kiss, or you kiss me with your nose Eskimo style). Oh baby, you make it hard for me to scold you when you look at me with your silly face. I have to remind myself to keep a straight face. You are not happy you are in kindergarten. You are very young to have started kindergarten, I mean you started the same month you turned five, but mommy felt you were ready for it. You are, but you don't like to have more work and have to do so much handwriting exercises and reading exercises. You liked it when you were done with school much faster than your sister. You still finish before her as she started first grade early too, but you know you are doing more work than you used to. You have gone leaps and bounds in your journey to learning to self-control. You still have a hard time not making angry faces when mommy calls you out for disobeying or making something wrong, and that earns you more discipline than the sole disobedience, but you are getting better at letting go of that face much quicker and changing your demeanor. You are learning not to use your squeaky squeally voice when you are upset or impatient, but we still have ways to go. You have started making drawings!! Your family drawings are hilarious. You make daddy the size of the whole page and fits us around him in the space left. I bet it is just to portray how much you love your daddy. It's funny to remember you were not a cuddly baby because cuddling is your love language now. You feel full just by having someone you can sit on while you watch some tv or take a nap. I love how you throw kisses at mom and dad: you start walking toward us and the kiss is audible in your lips all the way from wherever you are to our cheek. It's so funny. You are a little abstract painter taking great joy in painting big splashes of colors, often pink splotches. You think they are wall-worthy. I remind you you mush make a greater effort for the wall-worthiness. You don't like it, but then give me more color varied abstract art for the wall. You and your sister have the most dumbfounding likes and personalities. Your sister's personality is soft, gentle, ladylike and very feminine, but she loves blue, extreme sports, skates and bikes, basketballs and bows and arrows. Your personality is tougher, humorous, selective, silly and unpolished, but you love pink, big dresses, tutus, unicorns, rainbows, and more pink with dolls and princesses. It's so funny. You used to be more of a loner during playtime, specially at the park. Not anymore. You love being inclusive with other girls at the park, specially younger girls who might be overlooked by the older kids at the park, like the ones who now include your sister because she is the best one at the monkey bars. You can't make it past yet and enjoy joining with the other youngsters who can't either. You are careful with your friends offering your hand to help them climb or go up the stairs. You love to ask me to swing you in the baby swings, but I refuse to put you in or out of those swings. That doesn't stop you and it's one of my favorite things about you. You love the things I make for you and treat them like treasures. You play the most with the dollhouse I made and with any leftover decorations from any birthday. You were so worried about this birthday because you were not seeing mommy do lots of things. You would ask me constantly when I'd do the cake and cupcakes and decorations. You were so happy when we started working together. We really enjoyed watching the Trolls series together. You are as silly as a troll and as loving too. I see you being a very loyal friend and someone who stands up against mean girls. You finally learned how to play with the puppy being careful. You always find a way to hurt your dad when you play with him or run to him. Dad knows to cover his tender parts when you run towards him. I can't help but laugh. I love the gleam in your eyes when you learn to do something new. You love sharing with me the new things you learn. Your Spanish needs a lot of work because English is your first language. You surprise me during swimming lessons. You were not happy when you took the summer course on February. To be honest, I was surprised you made the team cut. But now you are so devoted and passionate. I can see how hard you try. Your sister felt the competitive spark when in the last competition she came in fourth and you came in second. You didn't race against each other, but your sister always comes first. It was a good lesson for all. This post could go forever talking about you, my little one. You are so amazing. You are such a joy to have in my life. You are five now, but you still wake up at 6 am to go to my room and cuddle with me until 7 am. I love those mornings just the two of us in bed were I've seen you stare into my face. I want to remember those times forever. Thank you for your love, thank you for disarming my crankiness with your sweetness and humor. Thank you for teaching me so much through watching you grow. I love you, my baby, my baby forever. May God continue His work in You. Love, mom.
