*Parties*

I love planning my kid's birthday parties!  I don't do anything extravagant but I do like fun themes and searching for cute things to go with the particular theme.  I get lots of ideas from searching other blogs and since being introduced to Etsy and now Pinterest, birthday parties have become even more fun!  

Here are some parties I've done in the past if you're looking for ideas....

A Cupcake Party!



I've been planning this party for months. Seriously, I think I started purchasing things back in March. Harper's original party date was supposed to be in the beginning of May but then my dad passed away and of course that changed everything. Just didn't feel like partying.


But I really wanted to do this for my little girl because Harper is the middle child, she puts up with a lot and Bennett gets a ton of attention with all of his therapies. I felt Harper needed a special party this year and after all, girls just wanna have fun:)

So without further ado, a cupcake party for our little cupcake;)....


At the bottom of the post I'll list where I got everything in case you're planning a cupcake party-such an easy and fun theme!!


The weather held out-so thankful for that because it looked like it could start raining at any minute! I'm loving pom poms right now and they added the perfect touch, just floating above. Pink and green were the colors-another easy combo!


The birthday girl! Her favorite color is purple so of course I had to make her a skirt and then I found a cute apron kit (Hobby Lobby) for a child and doll and it fit her theme perfectly.


Harper with her "Bitty Baby" in their matching aprons!


The goods.


Another beautiful cake made by my talented friend Jeannie! We are really going to miss Jeannie and her wonderful cakes when we move!! The inside was purple upon Harper's request;)


By no means do they look professional but I wanted to tackle making my own sugar cookies with royal icing and I feel I succeeded. I'll list the site where I got the easy instructions on the bottom. Cute stickers were from etsy-site listed at the bottom.

I found these straws on etsy and these glass jars at Hobby Lobby. I just took off the tops of the jars and they worked great as cute glasses to hold the pink lemonade!


The party was later in the day so I offered light "healthy" snacks along with a ton of sugary ones;)


I saw this somewhere and the person was selling it for $45- I knew I could make it for less since I already had a ton of ribbon. So easy, just used a topiary and then cut ribbon about 4 inches long, looped it and pinned it with tiny sewing pins.

Ainsley's room is pink and green so it now sits in her room as a decoration and she loves it!


More cupcake things I found at Micheals and etsy. The little cupcake confetti as well as the big cupcakes hanging from the lanterns (hard to see) were from an etsy site and I got them for a great price.


So for the party I had the girls decorate their paper baker hats with markers and stickers. The girls were all either age 6 or 4 and they loved writing their own name by themselves. Some of the little ones needed help but I think they enjoyed decorating their hat with tons of stickers!


After that, the girls iced and decorated their own cupcakes that I had made. Ainsley's proud of her creation.


Not sure if Harper could get anymore sprinkles on hers!
The whole gang!

After the cupcakes, we decorated our own cupcake cake pops but we don't have pictures because that took both Mike and I to help and supervise;) Btw, Mike was a HUGE help!!!

We also cracked open a cupcake pinata but again no pics, just video and it's hilarious to hear the 6 year olds tell the 4 year olds: "Get it girl!"



Bennett could have cared less about all the girly stuff and went straight for the bat we used for the pinata- "attaboy!"

All in all the party was a success and Harper told me the next morning that she loved her party and all the things they did-I'm one happy momma:)

Here's where I got ideas and everything seen at the party:




A Minnie Mouse Party!

This weekend we celebrated Ainsley's 6th birthday with a Minnie Mouse sleepover! Her actual birthday isn't until the 20th but I've found the closer we do it to her birthday, the lower the turn out due to Christmas parties and such so this works! Ainsley requested a "Minnie Mouse" theme so that's what we did....


The invitations-got these from here and then printed them out.

I got the banner from here, the mouse ears from Party City and I made the shirts.

I created a Minnie Mouse "Bow-tique" and all the girls received minnie mouse, matching shirts and ears when they arrived to change into...

This was Ainsley's very first sleepover and many of the other girls as well so I wasn't sure how the night would turn out;0

Her cake and cupcakes, made by my friend Jeannie!

I got the cupcake toppers from here, the boxes from Micheal's and the Minnie Mouse heads on the boxes were cut outs from extra invitations.

So cute!

After cake we played a fun game and then they decorated their own minnie mouse cookies. Believe me people, I had these girls on a tight schedule or else total chaos would have broken out! 7 girls, ages 3 (Harper) to 6-need I say more?

I ordered the Minnie Mouse head cookie cutter on line.  I got the minnie mouse confetti on the table from the same place as the banner and cupcake toppers.  

Here are some of the cookies they made! LOL, aren't they cute?! I wouldn't let them eat them though-they already ate pizza, cake and cupcakes and were getting ready to have popcorn! I told them they needed to "dry":)

After cookie decorating it was time to get in our p.j.'s (we call them "jommies" in our house) but that's definitely not what others call them as I found out when I said "lets get our jommies on!"-"Jommies??"Ha-ha.

We watched 2 movies (Minnie Mouse and Barbie) with popcorn, read a book and then it was time to brush our teeth and then "lights out"....

A couple of the girls started to get a tad nervous -"I miss my mommy and daddy";( so I asked if they wanted to have all of their heads close and that way everyone would have someone next to them. They liked that idea and then Ainsley suggested they all hold hands to help the girls that were scared;).

All was quiet by 11:30 and not a peep until 7:15 the next morning-not too bad! I must say that I was quite shocked that my Harper shared the spot of "ringleader" for much of the night. I don't think she realized or even cared that they were all almost 3 years older than her-she fit right in!

The next morning Mike made "Mickey/Minnie" pancakes!
(Just cook three pancakes together and you have Mickey/Minnie!)

Bennett was asleep when the girls arrived the night before but when he woke up...

he charmed the girls, naturally;)

So all in all it was a successful sleepover!! Everyone said how brave I was but really these girls were great and just so sweet and it really helped to have the night scheduled.

We love you Ainsley and hope you had the "best birthday party ever"!

*********

A "Crabby" Birthday Party-Part 1 (All Things Crab!)

So I'm going to do this in two parts because we got lots of cute pics of Bennett's big day to share. I need to start off, however, with the actual day itself (before the party). You see I've been planning this for months, envisioning the perfect party for Bennett- outside on our patio, with friends, kids, all the cute crab stuff and the one big thing-SUN. Yep, I started watching the weather like a hawk on the Monday before his party and it was iffy. But as the week went on it got better and looked like just cloudy weather with absolutely no rain so really, was there a need for a plan B? Not when you're a perfectionist and you've had the perfect party planned in your head! I checked the weather several times the morning of-still cloudy but warm and NO RAIN until Sunday.

The sun started to peek through the clouds and Ainsley and I did a little happy dance and we brought more stuff outside. And then it started to get really cloudy again. And I checked the weather about 2 hours before the party but it drastically changed and they were calling for light showers from 4-6pm- the party started at 4:30! To make a long and stressful story short, we frantically put up tents because it called for LIGHT showers/DRIZZLE but about 40 minutes before it was to start, the sky opened up and the rain began to POUR {what the heck happened to light showers and drizzle weather man!!??}, all.over.the.decorations. I was in tears. I mean it's not like I had pony and elephant rides for the kids but you know how it is, right?

So I pulled myself together (Mike's saying "yeah, riiight" when he reads this) and quickly went with plan B-which never really existed by the way. Sigh. I know it's not important and our friends don't care, we don't need to impress them because they're our friends and that's what friends are all about but still:( Anyways, I thought I'd share everything crab that was at the party with ya'll...

Okay first, I just had to share this one. Here is Bennett opening up his family gifts that morning and Harper is so upset because she really wanted to "help" Bennett open them, only she was ready to rip right into them and not give him a chance. He's got his pouty lip out because he isn't pleased with her loud crying-LOL.
Here he is in the crab pool I found at Target-this was obviously outside for the party with a bunch of cute crab squirters for the kids-didn't get to do that though;( But he loves it- should be fun this summer when we can't make it to the big pool!

The outfit that inspired it all!  I made it.
The crab invites (info. blocked out-obviously) from zappos.com
The kitchen table that I decorated at the last minute as rain poured down{boo-hoo}. I have to give credit to Mike because as I was crumbling under the pressure-lol-he whipped up 3 awesome dips in minutes just before the guests arrived.


My friend Jeannie did it again by making Bennett this awesome crab cake!
And a cute little smash cake too!
She also made yummy cupcakes and I added these crab cupcake toppers that I purchased from here.

Cute crab banner from the same etsy shop as the cupcake toppers.

More crab goodies!  The lobsters crabs were from Giant (grocery store)-they kind of looked like crabs:) I also did a cute crab craft with the kids- you can see the little styrofoam crab in this pic-got the idea from searching on-line. They seemed to enjoy it:) Bubbles were from the dollar store in the wedding section and I even found some crab lollipops from here.


These awesome monogram cookies I got here.
Crab totes for the favors (found them at Christmas Tree Shop for nothing-well not nothing but you know what I mean!) and more crab stuff-squirters (Doller store), beach critters sand toys.  The crab gift tags were from the same place as the banner and cupcake toppers.  And the tiny crab cut out confettis that I put everywhere were from here.

And if you look hard enough, you can even find a crab bib!  Dollar section at Target.


So you know I had to dress the entire family up in crab attire! {Minus Mike:)}


And then my friend Jenni made these adorable thank you cards and address stickers (info. blocked out again). I love the little saying "I could just pinch you" that she added- too funny!

All in all the party went great and no one cared that we were inside, bumping into each other (except for me but I got over it) and I'll share pictures from that in the next post- too many pics all at once!

I definitely learned my lesson in being flexible with this party, that's for sure!

And to always have a solid plan B!! Oh and to not really trust the weather man;)


 A Fairy Party....























Happy 5th Birthday Harper!  We hope you enjoyed your party!



A Baby Shower!

So this was my first baby shower I helped host but it was also a baby shower that was in a different state
so that made it a bit tricky as far as deciding on decorations and bringing everything in the car on a long
trip.  
I think it ended up being very nice though and the mom to be seemed pleased;)

















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