Foodbuzz 24,24,24: Party Like a Preschooler

Today my first born turned four. I swear the balloons aren't chocking him on the picture above, it's just that he's sooooo excited to be four (can you see his little fingers?) that all he did today was scream with delight.

He also ate a ridiculous amount of sugar and shared the sugar wealth with his friends. We had over 100 people come out to celebrate Enzo's birthday.

Luckily Enzo planned the menu, which pretty much involved an insane amount of snack food and hot dogs.

Last year I meticulously planned the menu and spent forever cooking. This year I decided to start a new tradition, on your birthday YOU decide what you want to eat and what you want to share with your guests.

I started planning the menu with Enzo about 3 weeks ago, but actually, only got serious about it 3 days ago because I knew he would change his mind if given any more time.

Enzo's Menu

• popcorn from a popcorn machine
• hot dogs
• juice
• marshmallows
• cereal
• chips
• gold fish crackers
• baby carrots (the only vegetable he will eat)
• train cake
• ice- cream

Popcorn- We did get a popcorn machine and I am so glad we did because it tasted way better than microwave popcorn and the kids loved it.

Hot dogs- We bought 64 beef hot dogs  and 30 vegetarian hot dogs. Every single one got eaten. oops. Next time we need to get more.

Juice- I went for Izze because they're delicious and pretty, for the adults. For the kids I got juice boxes. There was also plenty of bottled water because it was a hot sunny day.

Marshmallows- Enzo loves marshmallows but I never really let him eat them because, well... they're kind of disgusting. He was adamant about having them at his party. I wanted to do something different with them and thought about making the marshmallow pops that I had previously blogged about.  I didn't have any lollipop sticks and had plenty of cupcake liners so instead we made them look like little cupcakes.

We dipped them in melted chocolate and then covered them in sprinkles and mini m&m.

The kids loved eating the top and leaving the rest behind... naughty kids (so predictable).

Cereal- This is another Enzo staple that he wanted to incorporate. When my husband was little he used to be able to choose whatever cereal he wanted for his birthday, a little change fromm the usual non-sugar cereal that his parents had lying around. So, in name of tradition I took Enzo to the store and let him pick a new kind of cereal. He went straight for the fruity cheerios, the ones that look and taste just like fruit loops.

chips, Gold Fish crackers, and baby carrots- were the easiest. We got a huge bag of tortilla chips lots of salsa, he picked the rainbow colored gold fish, and the baby carrots were a no brainier. We dumped it all in bowls and called it good.

Train Cake- Enzo is a trainiac.

so this year he got 2 train cakes instead of 1.

The secret to a great train cake is the pan. Seriously, so worth it.  Last year Christian spent HOURS and HOURS and even more hours that he didn't have, making a train cake from scratch. This year we fell in love with the pans.

The first pan can be found here and the engine pan can be found here. Both pans have their own recipes on the back of the pan and we went with those recipes because we wanted to make sure that the cake would come out of the pan. The recipes worked great. Last night we totally got a sugar high from decorating the cakes. Today Enzo got a sugar high from eating them, along with all the other treats he requested.

I think a sugar high is a perfectly good way to start your 4th year of life.

This birthday party was a success in part because of the wonderful folks at Foodbuzz who selected his party to be part of the 24,24,24 event. Do you know what Foodbuzz 24,24,24 is? No! Then go check it out right now, it's the most fabulous idea ever. Thanks Foodbuzz, you guys rock my world and yesterday you guys rocked the preschool age world too.