Happy Birthday, Leena: Round 1!

Today was Leena's 10th birthday party!

The actual day falls later next week, but we had the party a little early.

Leena asked for a "rain forest party."

Klenda painted the windows with appropriate flora and fauna.


Mxyl hung vines across the ceiling and I put a waterfall (silvery streamers) across a doorway.




I  gathered all the jungle animals I could find and put them around the room, but Curious George's predicament is from the Emperor.

Not that the monkey seemed to mind!

 We made an ice-cream-cheese-cake.  This was super easy and yummy!

Each "cake" is a (store bought, in my case) graham cracker pie shell. The filling (for each) is 2 8oz packages of cream cheese, 2/3 cup of sugar, some vanilla, and 1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped together until light and silky.





I then tinted some of the filling to make the "10," added some sprinkles and froze the whole thing.


It tasted like cheesecake flavored ice cream mousse!

Yum!  Yum!  It was delicious even after it thawed and returned to a mousse consistency!

The kids played a bunch of rain forest themed games that Leena had found or made up.  The only one I was involved with was "Pin the Banana on the Monkey."

You can see the monkey face behind Choclo in the picture.  I drew the face, Zorg made the bananas, and I handed out the Mardi Gras beads (the ones I couldn't find on Mardi Gras) as prizes.

I like everyone to get a prize, and I like to have a winner, so they got to pick their beads in the order of "closest banana!"