Once Upon a Time Birthday Party

Sarah requested a Once Upon a Time-themed party for her birthday and I was happy to oblige.

The theme of this party could also be called, "How far will Rachel go to avoid printing stuff." You'll understand when you see the decor, which was all hand-sketched because printing stuff is really annoying. Our party budget generally goes all for the food, and for this party, we spent the equivalent of $1 on poster-sized sheets of paper for our decorations.

We hung scarves around the walls on various objects and covered up bookshelves in striped blankets, going for an "otherworldly" feel--anything to make the house not seem like the normal house we do schoolwork in every day. It ended up as a sort-of mashup of Granny's Diner, Agrabah, the Enchanted Forest, Storybrooke, and Regina's Castle.

It was perfect.

We all decided to dress up for the occasion.

 The Evil Queen felt like an odd choice for MaryGrace, who is the definition of sweetness and kindness, but I had fun doing her ultra-dramatic Evil Queen eyes.

 Predictable as ever, I was Captain Hook. I follow the whole, "If you can't be yourself, always be a pirate" rule for life. I remained true to character and wore my hook the whole night, which meant I needed help making my sandwich and I almost dropped my cake on the ground, but all was well.

Also, I do know that Hook's hook is on his left hand. However, since I'm left-handed and I assume that Hook is right-handed, I figured switching arms would create the most authentic Hook experience.

Robin Hood isn't usually allowed to play with her crossbow and arrows so she enjoyed the opportunity this evening.

The birthday girl was Belle, and Mom was Ruby. Dad was deemed "Prince Charming" and we also had an Emma and a Mulan show up at the party. Angel opted out of dressing up, so we decided he was Jiminy Cricket.

Our food matched the theme as well:

Lasagna was the obvious choice for a main course, but most of us really, really don't like lasagna, so we decided to have pulled pork sandwiches since they're the epitome of American diner food and they are very "exotic" here.

We didn't forget the whipped cream or the cinnamon!

 Yep, watermelon hearts, too.

We had even more ideas for food, like cookies in the shape of Hook's missing hand, and Apple Crisp because of Regina's fondness for apples, but those would have required an oven, and Mom and Dad's oven died a week before the party.

We played two Once Upon a Time games--the first was one I'd created with Powerpoint slides showing various obscure or not-so-obscure items from the show, and teams had to race to tell me what the item was and what it's significance was as well.

The second game was Taboo--except with characters from the television show instead of normal words.

And now the birthday girl is one year older. Next year, double digits!