Posts Tagged ‘2nd birthday’

Caroline’s Winter Fairy Birthday Party

Monday, December 17th, 2012

 

Hello, welcome to our magical winter fairy birthday party wonderland! We’re so happy you’re here to celebrate Caroline’s second birthday. Our theme this time is winter fairies, who like the ice, snow, cold weather animals and of course, pine cones:

Fancy Chalkboard

Fancy Chalkboard

Winter Fairy Birthday

Fairy house and magic tree

Winter Fairy Birthday

Welcome to my cottage, friends!

Welcome to my cottage, friends!

Winter Fairy Birthday

Caroline’s yearly books, from her first day til this month

fairy tent over food table

Winter Fairy Birthday

Don’t forget proper fairy attire:

Fairy party wings

Wings, headbands & antlers!

Winter Fairy Party

I spy some fairies!

Please have some food:

Winter Fairy Birthday

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Thumbprint cookies (so, so, so good. Insanely good. You won’t believe it good.)

winter fairy birthday food

Candy Cane Chex Mix, Caramel/Chocolate/Candy Appples

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Sparkling Brie Bites (these are now a tradition, since we had them last year too)

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Gum drop fudge (I used those sparkly gummy fruit wedges – DELICIOUS)

Winter Fairy Birthday food

My mom made her traditional Christmas coffee cake

winter fairy birthday food

Coconut snowballs, Pita Trees

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Pancake tree-tower, dusted with powdered sugar and surrounded by extra sparkling cranberries (I used the store brand complete mix, which was surprisingly good!)

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Caprese Pops (pin link, original pin goes nowhere)

winter fairy birthday food

Reindeer Cookies –  E said these are his new favorite Christmas cookie

winter fairy birthday food

Cucumber sandwiches – ALWAYS a hit

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Pinecone cheeseball – I ignored the recipe and mixed 1 block cream cheese with a tub of Rondele herb cheese and added a little dill and garlic powder. Then I ate ALL the leftovers for dinner.

winter fairy birthday snowman pops

Snowman marshmallow pops

winter fairy birthday food

Microwave popcorn in paper cones I made with scrapbook paper and a hole punch

Winter Fairy Birthday food

Olive wreath – This was the only thing that was TOTALLY gone at the end

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Fruit tree – thanks to my mom for doing all the work on this

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Cupcakes – white box cake mix with homemade frosting (1 stick butter, 1 block cream cheese, 1 2 lb bag of powdered sugar, the end)

winter animal cupcake toppers

Sparkly polar bears! Reindeer! Narwhals!!

Winter Fairy Birthday food
Extra cupcakes

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I forgot to take a picture of the buttermints, but they get 5 stars definitely will make again

Help yourself to a drink:

Winter Fairy Birthday hot cocoa bar

Winter Fairy Birthday drinks

Homemade gingerbread donuts on “milk bottles” (actually those store-bought frappuchinos) (idea from here)

Winter Fairy Birthday Winter Fairy Birthday donut on a milk bottle

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On the hot cocoa bar: candy cane dippers, peppermint sticks, mini M&M’s, mint marshmallows, regular marshmallows, whipped cream, 2 kind of creamer, whipped cream vodka (THIS IS A THING), peppermint schnapps, Bailey’s, sugar sprinkles, milk hot chocolate, dark hot chocolate, coffee, hot cider.

Decorate a tree to take home (or eat right now because they’re delicious):

Winter Fairy Birthday activities

Winter Fairy Birthday activities

Winter Fairy Birthday activities

Winter Fairy Birthday activities

Winter Fairy Birthday

Winter Fairy Birthday

Winter Fairy Birthday

Caroline really enjoyed this part of the party

Winter Fairy Birthday

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Winter Fairy Birthday activity

MESS.

Don’t forget your party favors:

Winter Fairy Birthday favors

Red & white glitter play dough in mini mason jars with printable tags

Winter Fairy Birthday favors

Magic wands I made from dowels, tiny eye hooks, ribbon and jingle bells (I totally forgot to give them out!)

Winter Fairy Birthday activity

Foam ornament decorating

The birthday girl had a wonderful time (even though her brother blew out her candles):

Winter Fairy Birthday blow out the candles

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1-Party Photos8 1-Party Photos5 1-Party Photos11

Thank you friends for coming!

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Winter Fairy Birthday

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1-Party Photos10

I actually missed photographing a lot of details and people because I was too buy enjoying my own party (for once!) Despite a lot of things not going as planned – Caroline refused to wear EITHER of the “princess dresses” I planned for her, misplacing her beautiful hair bow (not that she’d wear that either), forgetting to give the kids their magic wands, not getting many photos in the photo booth – I think everyone had a really good time and that’s what is really important at a 2 year old’s birthday.

Sites and Sources:

My Pinterest Board

Tips for writing on chalkboards (dipping the chalk in water worked REALLY well)
I made the chalkboards using garage sale frames, spray paint (silver and chalkboard colored) and a piece of particle board
Wings are from both a local bargain store and The Hair Bow Company
Headbands and antlers from Oriental Trading
Tissue paper snowflakes from Oriental Trading
Branches, crystals, ice cubes, paper stars from Save on Crafts
I made the tent with Ikea curtains and an embroidery hoop (
tutorial here)
Balloons from Oriental Trading
The Fairy House is a the Discovery Kid’s Playhouse I bought on clearance after last Christmas for $10
Mini light strings, paper gingerbread house, red lanterns, various other Christmas decor from Ikea
Hot cocoa k-cups purchased at Bed Bath & Beyond
Deer cupcake toppers, cupcake wrappers, paper straws, sprinkles from Bake It Pretty
Super awesome tree stump stands were made by my dad
Winter animal cupcake toppers were custom made by PaperPartyParade
All banners, signs and labels were made by me using cardstock, my printer & free fonts found online

Pretty much everything else is from Target or Michael’s

That was really fun but I am SO glad it’s over and I can concentrate on wrapping Christmas gifts and not baking for 12 hours a day. I think my theme for next year is just going to be “Milk & Cookies” and I’ll spread out all the cookie-making over a month so my feet don’t feel like they’re going to fall off from standing in front of the stove. Mmm…cookies.

Winter Fairy Birthday Invitation

p.s. I forgot to include the beautiful invitations my friend Denae designed for me! She did Evan’s dino invites too & is so talented.

Evan’s Second Birthday: Friends

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Little Evan is so lucky to have so many awesome friends. Because even though all the decorations and fancy food is for me, the party is still for him, and he LOVES other kids. LOVES THEM. He would spend all day giving hugs if his friends would hold still long enough – but he’s just as happy to chase them in circles while laughing his little red head over off and running like a weirdo. Seriously, the boy has the STRANGEST run ever. I should get it on video.

Here are some of the GORGEOUS children from our party. Seriously, how is it possible all my friends have such good looking kids?

 

Caroline wore polka-dots to fit in with our theme

A was really excited about the balloons

 

M had the BEST time in the ball pit. I should tell her mama to bring her over any time for more jumping.

Luckily the weather was nice enough for the porch swing. My friend Sarah's kids also dressed for our theme!

Running-start hug for my Aunt Susan. I was surprised so many kids wore the hats!

Tip toes to reach a balloon

 

T and his crazy hair in the ball pit

I know I've posted a zillion pics of J already but isn't this BEAUTIFUL? My dad took it.

C really enjoyed his fruit and veggies. His mama made him that vest!

N loved having her picture taken

And I recycled the photo booth from the circus party last year. I once again failed to get good pictures of everyone, especially with the weird afternoon light and the smallish backdrop. Next party I’ll use more fabric on a better-lit wall. If I can find one of those in my house.

Please note the headband I made that matches Little Evan's shirt. AM CRAFTY.

 

I have more, but I’ll save them for a Facebook album so people who’s kids are in them can steal and share them easily. Thank you so much to everyone who came! You made our celebration special!!

Evan’s Second Birthday: Decorations

Monday, April 11th, 2011

After Evan’s big fancy over-done 1st birthday last year I swore I wouldn’t be doing a major party again until he was well into elementary school. But as this year’s birthday approached it occurred to me that throwing the party had very little to do with him and everything to do with ME. I wanted to celebrate the day I gave birth to my baby, I wanted to hang out with all my friends, I wanted to make my house pretty, I wanted to eat a disgusting amount of cake.

So I threw another party.

(Edited to remove my address & phone number so you can’t crazy stalk me. I know you were planning on it.)

I made the invitations on my computer with an old graphics program I stole borrowed from my office job. Then I ordered them as matte photo prints from Snapfish using a coupon code. Total cost: $4.05

The biggest difference between throwing a first birthday party and throwing a second birthday party is that 2 year olds need to be entertained a lot more than 1 year olds. So I went with a play time theme featuring the three things Little Evan loves most in the world: bubbles, balls and balloons. Then I categorized all those things as “round” and ran with it. I ran like I was in the Boston Marathon being chased by rabid badgers on roller skates carrying flame throwers.

 

Dining Room

As usual, all the “tablecloths” are just yards of fabric from Joann’s. The ones on the main table are really 3 piece of fabric just laying there. I am too lazy to sew.

Entryway - please ignore one wonky circle in the banner. It's glitter paper and my sticker didn't stick

 

Living Room - I made the banners with scrapbook paper, my printer and salad bowls for circle tracing

Living Room

The ball pit is actually Little Evan’s birthday present from LAST year. We left it up in the living room for a few months but I eventually wanted my house back and put it away. He was REALLY excited to see it again and I’m sort of amazed it didn’t get popped considering how much fun was had in it.

I love this picture the most because you can see decorations in both rooms, the gorgeous colors, and the children having a great time

 

Blurry photos of other people's kids to protect privacy

A few decorating details:

I bought the bottles of bubbles at Michael’s ($3 for 6), cut scrapbook paper into strips and then printed the circle stickers I designed on sheets of label paper. I used a big hole puncher to cut them, stuck them on the paper and hot glued the paper around the bottles. Boom, party favors!

I bought a 50 balloon helium tank at BJ’s for $21 and my dad blew them all up for us. Some of the strings were long enough for the taller kids to grab, but Little Evan kept losing his so we made sure he always had them with him:

That's the shirt I made! The same fabric is on my headband and on the entry table.

My mom had the brilliant idea to anchor some of the balloons with the adorable polka dot chalk we found at Michael’s ($1 for 5 pieces) and send them home with the kids.

Adorable, right?

There are also lots of round candies, so I filled a bunch of glass containers with them at stuck them on the mantel – jelly beans, peanut M & M’s, gum balls and DumDums. I ordered the giant rainbow lollipops from Oriental Trading Company and used more of my label paper, graphics program, and giant hole punch to make the stickers. Then I raided my milk glass collection for vases.

Other stuff I got from Oriental Trading:

 

Party Lanterns (And they fold up, so they're reusable!)

Beach balls and mini beach balls - perfect sized for small hands and helped fill up the pit nicely. I *think* some of the kids took them home (which was the plan) but we still have tons. They were cheap.

And to round it all out (BA DUM CHING) I picked up flowers in the colors that matched my theme: yellow, orange, blue and green. I was very excited to find blue flowers – and NATURAL blue flowers at that!

You know what DIDN’T work out great? The bubble machine. It got sort of sticky during our pre-party trial run and didn’t make the huge number of bubbles it used to. I put it on the porch to avoid slippery floors but it made the floor out there slippery so I turned it off until the kids found it. I had imagined gorgeous photos of children and bubbles but didn’t get any at all. But when it WAS working (for about 10 minutes) the kids really liked it!

Actually, the kids liked all of it. Especially the birthday boy.

How can I help but give this kid the best parties I can?

I had intended to just do one post for the whole party but this is getting ridiculously long, so I’ll save food for tomorrow. Or maybe later today. It really is the best part – I went a little crazy on the theme. I also ended up making the cake, frosting and filling from scratch (recipes and links coming soon!) so I need to give it the attention it deserves. And if you come to my house I have some left over for you to try. Please, please come eat this cake.

I linked up at Tip Junkie – she’s got some amazing parties on her site!

Tip Junkie handmade projects

Don’t Burst My Bubble

Friday, February 18th, 2011

My plan worked! Or at least, I’m going to pretend is was my genius idea on Wednesday that lead to our current thaw and the chance to play out on the porch yesterday. Thank God for that porch y’all, because the yard is still 80% snow but the other 20% is mud and even though I’m trying to keep up my good attitude regarding my housekeeping responsibilities it would be madness to encourage a toddler and a dog to play in the dirt and then run through the house. MADNESS I TELL YOU.

We took advantage of the 50+ degree weather to try out Little Evan’s new bubble machine. I asked Twitter for suggestions and although everyone agreed the cheap kind tend to break down after a lot of use I only need it to work until the beginning of April, so for $11 I’m willing to buy another if need be.

Because really, this much fun is totally worth ten times that much.

Don’t even try to tell me that child needs a haircut. I’ll cut YOU.
I splurged for the fancy bubble solution (still only $3.99 for a giant jug) but I think it would work just as well with the homemade kind.

We hid this car on the porch for the winter and now it's like having a BRAND NEW TOY. Brilliant.

This picture has not been edited or retouched in any way. Holy ginger child, Batman!!

Portrait of a child who knows a cage when he sees it...even if it is full of bubbles.

I think the Navy should install bubble machines on all their submarines. It would certainly make them more fun. Doesn't E look like he's having fun?

Ok, now for a vote. Which picture do you think I should use on Little Evan’s birthday invitations?

#1 - Smiling child

OR

#2 - Amazed at the bubbles child

Either way it has to be cropped so the proportions are opposite – portrait instead of landscape – so his face and the bubbles around his face are the most important part. I can’t decide which one I like. I AM, however, getting super duper excited about the party. It’s not going to be *quite* as epic as last year’s circus party but still pretty fun.