Bear's Polar Bear Party

My first warning, if you are pregnant, really pregnant (I love the gospel description of Mary being "great with child" and that is truly how I feel), all birthday parties should be postponed or simple. Being six weeks from delivery, anemic (meaning ridiculously tired), stressed from an impending adoption, and worried for a sister at the top of the heart transplant list, do not leave much room for birthday party planning.

This party, however, needed to be this year. We try to limit big parties to years when the child turns 5 and 10. Poor Bear is turning 7 and for the past two years we have put her party off. Last year we left the day after her birthday for China with promises of a grand party next year. Here it is next year and even though we had so much on our plate, we needed to follow through.

Our Bear is especially fond of polar bears, and in another post I will have to tell the story of how this fascination with them came about, but for now I will stick to the party. I found some really cute polar bear and penguin crafts online and at Target. We played pin the hat on the polar bear, we made polar bear and penguin ornaments, we went on a bear hunt. My favorite was supposed to be putting together your own polar bear cub-cake.
All the other activities went very well, except the cub cakes. I found the idea here. I think it would have worked well if there was more than one mom (or at least not a "great with child" mom) trying to help 11 girls. I also know that in the future, the cupcakes need to be frozen or left out overnight so they are not so soft. As the girls tried to frost the cupcakes, they fell apart because they were too fresh. They tasted great, but next time I will know better.
Despite the momentary cub-cake disaster, Bear had a fabulous party. She enjoyed just getting a chance to have friends over to play and it was a great way to celebrate turning seven. Banana's birthday is in the summer, and she turns ten. She wants a panda bear party now, so I am saving all my polar bear ideas to turn into panda bears.