Party: Strawberry Brunch
Twin Third Birthday, Greenfield
My twin daughters’ third birthday party was largely a creation of nap schedules. With a 2 p.m. nap for them and an early morning nap for my youngest daughter, a brunch party made the most sense. When I think of brunch, I think of food, and when my daughters think of food, they think of strawberries. Not only that, we have a weed-filled garden strawberry patch in our backyard.

With a strawberry theme, the food was easy. I bought bagels from Bagel Factory in Squirrel Hill (with berry cream cheese!) and made a spinach salad with strawberries. I added mashed up strawberries to the chocolate cupcakes I’ve made them for every birthday party and decorated the icing with diced strawberries.

I was getting my husband (whose birthday is three days after the twins’ and, with impeccable timing, fell on the day of the girls party) a surprise Carvel cake, so I decorated the cake stand temporarily with strawberries in leftover cupcake papers from Michael's.
Guests brought another salad and two egg dishes to feed the crowd. I also bought one a cheap plastic infuser pitchers at Target and threw some strawberries into Giant Eagle Market District lemonade. For $10, I bought printable strawberry party decorations from DimplePrints on Etsy. I used those for two banners and random table decorations, as well as signs like “Restroom” and “Welcome to My Party.”
I found a strawberry pinata and strawberry sunglasses at Party City online (yes, I might have been a teensy bit overboard) and told kids that they could pick strawberries from our backyard strawberry patch. I also bought some strawberry scratch and sniff stickers.

Favors were just the Starburst candy that filled the pinata put into red “take-out” containers. The pinata was a great icebreaking activity for three year olds but after my 9-year-old softball-playing niece couldn’t even bust it open, the actual birthday boy (i.e. my husband) had to do the honors.
And lest we forget my youngest daughter -- the non-birthday girl -- she got into the act too, or at least her butt did.
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