When I explained that our son, Nikko, asked for a Peanuts party to celebrate his 4th birthday, friends gave me a crazy eyebrow-look of confusion, since everyone who knows and loves him understands that he has severe peanut and tree nut allergies. I went further, to say that he loves Charlie Brown.
Safe to say, the Peanuts Gang, with Snoopy and Charlie Brown are the only welcomed “Peanuts” in our home, at the time our dog was also named Peanut.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a sense of humor, but of course I take peanuts themselves seriously. Day-to-day life with our son’s allergies seems to have become easier to deal with as time has passed. He’s 7 now and totally gets it. It’s something to deal with, but we all have something to deal with. We know how blessed we are to have a happy, healthy and incredibly bright child, so allergies couldn’t possibly be on the list of what defines him – our family simply considers it a matter-of-fact thing.
Back in 2011, when I almost had a year of being in business as Mili’s Sweets, I was excited to celebrate our son. We invited a couple children to our home, and decorated a dessert table for the kids to enjoy. It was small with some sweet little details, and but in the eyes of our four year old sweetheart, it was a great-big-party and a very big deal.
Nikko had it all figured out and I was happy to work in all of the details. He wanted to be Charlie Brown, so I purchased a custom T-shirt from etsy.com. Each child had their own Peanuts-T-shirt to wear to the party, all found online, and mailed with handmade party invitations.
He wanted a lot of bright colors, and a lot of candy. Easy and easy. I found a great dot-pattern wrapping paper at Target, and used it as the main pattern for decorating the dessert table. I wrapped a bulletin board and used it as the backdrop. I went to the party-supply shop the morning of the party and picked up balloons to match the paper.
I found licensed-Peanuts party supplies and cut them up to create the custom poster for the center of the backdrop. After the party, it was placed in my son’s room. I took Peanuts artwork from a book we own, scanned them, sized them and with the help of a local cake supply shop, printed edible images to use as cupcake toppers. I’m sure Mr. Schulz would not have minded, as it was just for our personal enjoyment.
Then there was the cake. At the time, green was Nikko’s favorite color.
The one item that took the most time to prepare for his celebration was the custom fondant cake topper. Nikko absolutely loved it!
There was a party inside the cake too! I colored the layers of his Yellow, Red, Green and Blue Velvet cake. It was darling and he thought it was super special and cool.
Of course, there was too much candy for such a small gathering, but no one was complaining!
This was such a fun celebration! I’m so happy to have put this together for our sweet boy and to have turned a little table into a party (through his eyes).
I love reaching into my archives, to post past dessert tables that I’ve catered, set and styled. This blog is a lot like a family journal for me too. As I do each year, I take out my “good camera” to take a portrait or two of our child on or just around their birthday, so that we can remember the moments.
At four, there’s so much enthusiasm about most everything – so many questions, so much learning and a ton of hugs and kisses. Most little ones still have baby cheeks too. I absolutely loved this special time!
