Oh Canada ~ One Last Canadian Birthday

First off I have to apologize for being quite late with this post. Sometimes life just gets in the way I suppose. That doesn't make this post any less important. Let me begin by saying that Katie is one of my dearest friends. When it came time for her last birthday in Canada before she moves down to Florida I knew we had to do something special. When Vanessa and I kept throwing around ideas, we always came back to the theme "One Last Canadian Birthday" and gathered a few of Katie's friends for a surprise party we hoped she'd never forget.


In true Katie fashion we threw her a DIY Canadian themed birthday party in mid October. She had absolutely no idea when she showed up at my house that she would be greeted by screams of "surprise". Katie was under the impression that Vanessa and I would be taking her out to dinner for her birthday, since she didn't want to do anything so close to her Jack and Jill party. Silly Katie really thought we'd let her last birthday with us just pass by without any big notice.

 Now, how does one throw a Canadian themed party in the middle of October you ask, well you start off by venturing off to every party store or dollar store in town. Surprisingly they all stock Canadian decor all year long.

We bought flags, red balloons, chocolate loonies, maple leaf sprinkles to add to chocolate covered strawberries, and red and white decor galore. For the do it yourself portion, we found  a printable sign and altered it for our party, we made a collage of photos of Katie and Tom at various "Canadian" locations so Tom could be included in the party even if he wasn't able to be here.

There were many Canadian printables in frames and as Katie would have done at her own party, we made loot bags which included maple flavoured cookies shaped as maple leafs packaged in fours and tied together with a Canada luggage tag since Katie would be leaving the country.

For the food portion it was hard to incorporate Canadian food under such short notice with such a small group, so we went with some of Katie's favourite food and lots of red sweets and treats. The party wouldn't be complete if I didn't bake Katie some of her favourite Red Velvet Cupcakes (A Cupcake Affair - www.acupcakeaffair.ca ).

No matter what we did for this party, it would never be enough to show Katie just how much we care about her and how much we would miss her when she left for Florida.  Katie, never forget that Canada is your home and your friends are looking forward to your many visits and will be waiting with open arms.