Our Brave Writer Good Enough Cupcake Party

We homeschool year-round. It’s just easier for our family, as we all appreciate routines. That said, we tend to be reeeeeallllly relaxed during the summer months. We abandon most of our curriculum and embrace child-led, passion-driven learning.

We have loved Brave Writer, and the Brave Writer Lifestyle, so much that we’ve continued with it throughout the summer. It has been easy, effortless. The way learning should be.

I digress…

I will be writing a review of Brave Writer very soon (stay tuned!), but today’s post is about a super-fun activity that combined two of my loves: Brave Writer and Usborne.

Our Brave Writer Good Enough Party

One of the things I love about Brave Writer is that it is so easy to work the curriculum into your lifestyle. A perfect example would be Schizz’s Good Enough Birthday Party. You see, the Brave Writer Lifestyle incorporates parties (A curriculum that involves parties? Sign me up!), but they aren’t the super-stressful-Pinterest-parties. Nope, they are Good Enough Parties.

This year, Schizz’s birthday fell on the day that we were leaving for vacation. He was working a ton in the days leading up to his birthday, so the celebration had to be on the day of his birthday/day we left for vacation. And I must add that it was crazy-hot-and-humid and the kids were crabby from missing Daddy.

Do you know what, folks?

• It’s challenging to pack and party plan.
• It’s extremely challenging to pack and party plan with crabby kids.
• It’s hard to throw a party on the day you leave for vacation.
• It’s difficult to bake a cake and take it with you on vacation.

So, I was sitting there, all sticky and crabby and stressed, when it occurred to me that we could have a Good Enough Party for Schizz.

Why didn’t I think of that before? It’s not like Schizz was in a party mood anyway, having worked nonstop the week before. Poor Schizz was in dire need of a vacation, not a party.

Quickly, we got to work!

First, we hit up the Dollar Store for some quirky gifts and party hats.

Oh, how I love what my children select for gifts when we go to the dollar store!

As if we needed more noise around here!

Then, we made cards….

…and a banner…

… and then we made cupcakes.

Usborne Children’s Cupcake Kit

I don’t know about you guys, but we get invited to so many birthday parties during the year and the parents will say, “Don’t bring anything!” and while I completely understand where they are coming from, I feel uncomfortable arriving empty-handed. Usually, we compromise by making hand-made cards and buying a book that we adore.

Have you read this post about how experiences are better than gifts? Don’t you agree?? I do! In fact, I convinced Schizz that we needed to go to Kenny Chesney as a joint-birthday celebration.

I digress… (again!)

I found the perfect don’t-want-to-arrive-empty-handed-and-yet-don’t-want-to-buy-more-plastic-crapola-that-the-parents-will-hate-you-for gift!

Seriously, how adorable is this?

It was also challenging to select the liners and toppers!

I am in love with the Usborne Children’s Cupcake Kit. My kids loved it, too. There were so many choices and ideas and creations that we probably spent more time pouring over the recipe book than we did actually baking the cupcakes.

Such a fun day!

If you want to see more, and if you can stand my scratchy allergy voice, you can check out this video for an Usborne FB party that I hosted earlier this summer:

Now, if we’re being completely honest here, our cupcakes did not look as beautiful as the ones in the Usborne kit, however, they were Good Enough cupcakes for our Good Enough Party and they tasted delicious!

Bonus: they traveled well!

Do you love Usborne, too?

If you want to host an Usborne FB party and earn free books, I’m your gal. And, if you love Usborne as much as we do, be sure to check out these posts:

Now, it’s your turn. Have you tried Brave Writer? Do you love Usborne? Do you host Good Enough Parties or Pinterest Parties? Share here!

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Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley

Cait is a school psychologist, mom to three amazing children, and an unexpected homeschooler. She loves nature, good books, board games, strong coffee, and dancing in her kitchen. You can read about all of these things and more at My Little Poppies.

Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.

Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool and GeekMom. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, and Scary Mommy. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.

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