Photo-A-Day #2374

I don’t know who was more excited about today, Me, Allison or Eva. Today was Eva’s fourth birthday party. We had her party at The Artful Phoenix in downtown North Attleboro. the Artful Phoenix is a artisans collaborative that showcases local artists and their works. They have a wonderful children’s room there and Eva loves going there whenever Allison goes to the Credit Union. Going to the Artful Phoenix was Eva’s idea. They have something called the hassle free birthday. They take care of the drinks, pizza, cupcakes and activity for the kids. The activity we chose was making Princess Sock Monkeys.

Such a cute group of monkeys

The monkeys were already assembled and they were so colorful and cute. They were done by Monkeyville. I missed her name but the woman who made all the monkeys was very nice. She let Eva pick her Monkey first and then did pin the tail on monkey with the kids. She had tails for the kids to color in while they got settled. Eva swears that she couldn’t see but she pinned the tail on the monkey in the exact perfect spot. She has Daddy’s sense of direction and spatial acuity. After pin the tail on the monkey the kids did musical chairs to determine order in which the rest of the kids chose their monkeys. The race to be the winner of that honor was fast and furious. These kids were intense about playing. Eva wanted to play as well even though she had gotten her monkey. She played but didn’t win. We’re going to have to work on being a good sport.

Perfect Aim!

Once the kids picked their sock monkeys they were given a bunch of foam stickers to decorate their sock monkeys. The fabric markers were held back and with good reason, I can picture the pretty dresses and faces covered with marker. The kids liked the stickers through and had fun putting them on their monkeys.

After decorating the sock monkeys we had pizzas from North Attleboro House of Pizza. The kids enjoyed their meals and so did the parents.

We figured that we’d do presents after pizza and before cupcakes so that the kids could digest a bit in between. Eva received some wonderful presents and was so happy opening them. I was commenting to one of the parents about how kids at this age ave no filter and I hope there are no hurt feelings. Eva loved everything that her friends gave her and then I gave her a First Act Acoustic Guitar (Disclosure: this is for a review later) and she says. “Oh I don’t need this I already have one”. So much for worrying about her hurting her friends feelings. She has a guitar at the Cape that she plays with but this one she’ll keep at home and use to learn on, if she is so inclined. I was thinking about learning myself so maybe we do it together.

After presents it was time to indulge in some delicious SweetWorks cupcakes. SweetWorks has great cupcakes, they make all sorts of them. With the hassle free birthday we got a tower of 18 cupcakes. But the kids only had eyes for one of those cupcakes. They all wanted the one with the cherry on top. I guess that one was the hot fudge sundae cupcake or something. And I am kicking myself for not being on the other side of the table when the cupcakes were put on the big table because as it was being placed three little hands reached for that one cupcake all at once. The top was knocked off and the cherry fell under the tower. Maybe we should have played another game for 1st picks on cupcakes.

They even got her a little #4 candle.

Eva ended up with that cupcake because she was birthday girl and she was very happy. she ate all the frosting and the cherry on top and she was done. Heck, if she just wanted frosting there were so many other delicious choices. But it was that cherry on top that lit up all the eyes in the room. If SweetWorks came out with a line of Sundae inspired cupcakes with cherries on top then they’d make even more of a killing.

They even put out this sign for Eva.

Then the party was over and our friends left for home. I said goodbye to Allison and Eva and headed to work. Allison went home with all the gifts and extra cupcakes but not before we said goodbye to the women from the Artful Phoenix. They were wonderful. They even gave Eva a bookmark and a little fabric bag. We couldn’t be more happy about the way the party was run and the value for what it cost and how lucky we are to have such nice and thoughtful friends. It was certainly one birthday to remember.