Maggie loves to help out in the kitchen, and has been our enthusiastic cooking sidekick since her wee days.  When she turned 4, we decided to celebrate this passion with a cooking-themed birthday party.

As usual, designing the invitation was one of my favorite pre-party tasks:

(If you like this invitation, it is available for $10 in my Etsy store.  I will customize it with your personal party details and email you the printable files within 48 hours!)

The cake took backstage at this party, because the kids all had their own individual cupcakes to frost and decorate.  But what would a party be without some sort of sugary centerpiece?  As a compromise, I baked a giant cupcake for all the grownups to enjoy.  You can buy a Wilton pan that makes this pretty simple:

All of the party activities were, of course, cooking-related!  I bought several blank aprons (available at Hobby Lobby, Michaels, etc.) and an assortment of fabric paints.  We let the kids go to town decorating their aprons, but with 4-year-olds this was definitely an activity that required parental help.  Thank goodness for our fabulous network of friends who stayed and lent a hand!

The meal itself provided plenty of kid-friendly cooking opportunities.  The kids made “salads on a stick” and homemade pizzas:

And of course, dessert meant it was time to decorate cupcakes!  Break out the sprinkles… and lots of ’em!

It would have been adorable to get little chef hats for all the kids, but I didn’t think of the idea in time to get them ordered.  Sigh. But everyone was very happy to go home with their custom aprons.

This party was simple to plan, but pretty high maintenance to orchestrate with all the hands-on activities that required parent help.  After the cake we were all more than happy to shoo the kids outside for some spring bike riding in the cul-de-sac while the grown ups enjoyed Moose’s Tooth pizza and some brews!  Now that is a successful end to a party!  Cheers!