When the world shut down… I, like many of us, thought it would be for a few weeks, a month maybe… When thinking about the supplies we might need, party supplies for the parties we’d be having here at home, was not on my mind. As the days passed and these special dates approached I started thinking of clever ways to celebrate my family in a time of pandemic.
“…the challenge was how to make it feel like a party that all of their friends were included in it!”
Something we do for every birthday is our home decoration tradition. You can find more about our family tradition here H-A-P-P-Y-B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y … but, since we have been spending so much time at home, I wanted the day to feel just a little more special and celebratory.
Here’s a photo of us doing what we were supposed to be doing for Spring Break….
In April, my husband’s birthday came first. We had planned on a short trip to Aulani (his favorite Disney vacation spot!) to celebrate. Since that wasn’t happening, I brought Aulani to him! We dressed in our best Hawaiian resort wear and lounged about pretending we were at our Disney Aulani Villa! I made our favorite treat, Mickey Musubi! For dinner, we ordered take out from a local Hawaiian restaurant. For dessert, I made the first of what would be a line of quarantine cakes.
Husbands “Tiger King” cake!
Adult themed celebrations are simple… you can go all in with a theme with festive food and drink and have a great time at home. With kids, the challenge was how to make it feel like a party that all of their friends were included in it!
In May, came Vie’s birthday. She was turning 11. She loves her school friends, they are very important to her, so I wanted to include them. One of the things they enjoy doing together during quarantine is playing games online in big group chats. When I saw Computerwise Kids birthday party offerings, I knew it was the perfect way for her to celebrate. They offer group gaming parties in kids favorite online games like Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of the online gaming and chatting for child safety reasons. However, Computerwise Kids offers absolutely safe, KID ONLY server with a host assigned to each party to help moderate and keep the party going! Vie was so happy and so surprised to have a party with all her friends even at a distance!
After their gaming time, her friends arranged a drive by birthday parade and her day was made. She played with her friends, even family from out of state! And saw and waved at her close friends as they celebrated her in a birthday parade. Later, we google met with our family to sing her Happy Birthday and reveal the second quarantine cake I made. It really was a perfect day.
Vie’s Broadway Cookie Cake
Later, in July, came Zoe’s birthday… I thought for sure we’d be out of Safe at Home orders by now, but alas, we were not. Zoe does not play video games, nor does she have very many close school friends. The last school year was her first school experience and it was cut short! So needless to say, this age proved a different challenge for me. She likes doing the same thing every year for her birthday, stay at the Disneyland Hotel and cut an Ariel themed cake. I had to figure out a way to bring her Disney Magic! I contacted a The Los Angeles Princess Company. They are a local company that specializes in princess impersonations. (I had actually used them before for Vie’s own 5th birthday!) I was surprised to find that their rates were VERY reasonable. For only $30 a princess of your choosing can video call your kids for 15 minutes! So I picked her two favorite princesses and scheduled a Zoom meeting with them, her best friends, and her cousins. Suntaches jumped in to help celebrate and gifted Zoe an array of fun Disney Princess sun glasses! The day before, I dropped off a goody bag to each of the girls with some treats and a pair of glasses for each so they could “dress-up” together, virtually.
The Princesses at Los Angeles Princess Co were incredible! They each told their stories. Jasmine sang “A Whole New World” like, REALLY sang!!! Ariel played games and had them acting silly. None of the girls wanted to hang up the call! They all wanted to wait and see who would come next! I had to promise them all another Princess play date in the future!
After the call, we spent time in the pool just like we would if we were at Disneyland Hotel. Later, we Google chatted with our family to sing her Happy Birthday and blow out the candle on my third quarantine cake! It was a perfectly magical princess day for her.
Zoe’s Sprinkle Ariel Cake
Thank you to Computerwise kids for hosting our virtual Fortnite party! If you’d like to book your own party I will link the site HERE!
Thank you SunStaches for the fun birthday glasses! They brought the girls so many giggles and made the meet to festive! They have glasses in virtually any theme and character you could want! They even made Vie’s virtual graduation fun in quarantine with their “grad” glasses!! I will link the site HERE so you can check them out too!
Up next, is my own birthday!
How would you celebrate your own birthday in quarantine??? I’m going to need ideas for this one!
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