I've been wanting to start a series of meals based on books for a while. With our honoring of Dr. Seuss this week, I thought it would be the perfect time to dive right in. We love all the books in this particular series, but If You Give a Pig a Party one is dear to us, because it's a book I check out for each of my children before their birthday. Although it's a pretty simple storyline, I think it will be added to our personal library soon. I'm all about traditions and I love the idea of having something that we do together on their special day each year. What a great memory for them to have!
In the story, a child is wanting to throw a party for a pig. It follows a progression of "If you give her this, she'll want that". While looking for friends, the pair ends up at a street fair where they play games and eat ice cream. Food, games, and ice cream?!? Twist my arm! :-)
Assembling this meal was quick and easy! I served grocery store chicken bites without even having to warm up, clown's bow tie pasta with a few veggies, feta, and Greek vinaigrette dressing, confetti fruit salad, popcorn in circus bags, small cups of peanuts, animal crackers, and lemonade with brightly colored plastic ice cubes. Plates were full, and the kids even went back for seconds! (A sign of food success in my book.)
Our Dollar Tree had a section of small circus themed wind up toys, clown dress up items, and even some teeny carnival games that made the greatest and (bonus)inexpensive for the table. (Um, can you say, "Goodie bags!"??) It would be cute to continue the red and yellow streamers around the table to give a "big top" effect. I have started a collection of plastic place mats to use as accents for parties, and these striped ones worked so well with my table. So that's streamers, table cloth (reused from the Lego party), place mats, circus toys, and pinwheels....for under $10! I printed some cute piggies right from Microsoft Word to bring the pig to our party. Voila! A book brought to life!
I scooped the ice cream into muffin liners ahead of time so there wouldn't be that dreaded time lag during serving time. We turned ours into clown faces by flipping cones upside down, topping with a cherry, and adding candy faces and a whipped cream collar.
At our house, there is always a party for friends held sometime around the birthday and a small family celebration on the actual birthday. This is a great option for a different end to your child's special dinner. No need to bake another cake!
Make sure you check out the games we played that turned our meal into a real party! (Coming soon)
Meredith
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