We celebrated Lincoln turning three and Finnegan turning one with a children’s book themed birthday party last weekend. I feel slightly guilty that I made them share a party when the big kids got their own celebrations for each of their first five years. But between the bathroom disaster (ongoing) and E’s work schedule, this was really our only free weekend for a party. I don’t think either of them minded. Honestly, the guest list would be exactly the same for both parties anyway. When you’re the 3rd and 4th kids your friends are the younger siblings of the big kids’ friends.

I didn’t start planning this party until late June, so when I was looking for a theme I needed something that wouldn’t need too many custom-made or hard to find items. I had done a Nursery Rhyme Baby Shower for Caroline and it was pretty easy and totally adorable, so I expanded upon that to include all children’s books. It turns out most children’s books are already about food, so the menu was the easiest part:

Book worms – gummy worms

Green Eggs and Ham – green deviled eggs

Very Hungry Caterpillar – cheese & sausage plate, fruit

The Runaway Bunny – veggies

Dragons Love Tacos – taco bar

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie – chocolate chip cookies

The Giving Tree – apple slices

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs – meatballs

Uni the Unicorn – unicorn pops

The Big Hungry Bear – strawberries/berries

Paddington Bear – marmalade sandwiches

Don’t Forget the Bacon – BLT sandwiches

Eloise at the Plaza – tea sandwiches

Where The Wild Things Are – wild thing claws (Bugles)

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great – sparkle cupcakes

Captain Flynn and the Pirate Dinosaurs – pink pirate dinosaur punch

I keep all of our dust covers in a box because the kids just ruin them. They came in hand as decor!

Taco bar serving trays were super cheap and from Amazon.

Wild things claws = Bugles

When it came to decor, I already had almost everything I needed. A few banners from Oriental Trading Company and a whole lot of photos added to the many, many books. Many of the books I used both as the theme and as actual decor are my books, from my own childhood. Some of the others are favorites from bedtime for Evan and Caroline. We were lucky enough to meet Mo Willems a few years ago (one of my favorite posts of all time!) so most of his books are signed. The whole thing just felt so special and personal, even if it isn’t the most dramatic theme I’ve ever done it was perfect!

Ladybug balls from Amazon.

All our Mo animals – Elphant and Piggie, Pigeon and four Knuffle Bunnies – came from a recent promotion at Kohl’s. I went to two different stores to find them all.

Bookmarks, bubbles and temporary tattoos for party favors.

Please excuse the unpainted spot on the wall, we didn’t quite get our construction finished before the party. At least we had a ceiling!

I made the photo display for Finnegan with a hula hoop, spray paint, ribbon, fake flowers and hot glue. The outside pictures are his monthday photos for the past 11 months and the center photos are from his cake smash session.

We are very lucky to have so many friends who have so many kids, because the kids are really what makes the parties fun. I also love that some of them have been coming for so long now that they get excited ahead of time thinking about cucumber sandwiches!

The cheeseburger pinata was from the party aisle at Target (and the theme is from Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, where cheeseburgers fall from the sky). I’ve had it in my dining room for months now and it always made me smile.

I also bought some of those magic quick-fill water balloons at Target when they went on clearance. They didn’t exactly go with the theme but Lincoln LOVES water balloons. And it was super hot, so the kids enjoyed getting wet and dried off quickly.

All four of my kids had book shirts from Out Of Print Clothing. I bought Evan shirts from their site when he was a toddler, which Lincoln still wears and Finn will wear. Evan wore Caps for Sale, Caroline wore Harold and the Purple Crayon, Lincoln got Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus and Finnegan wore Where The Wild Things Are. To be honest, Finnegan already owns like 5 other Wild Things shirts that were hand-me-downs but they’re all long sleeved and it was too hot so I bought him another. You cannot have to many Wild Things themed articles of clothing.

This bounce house I bought Lincoln for his first birthday remains one of my best decisions to date.

My kids are currently obsessed with painting rocks, so I put out supplies and lots of the big kids did rock painting. I sealed them all this week and we hid them at Mystic Seaport for others to find.

After water balloons and bounce house and painting and pinata and lots of eating and running around, we wrangled everyone inside to sing Happy Birthday to Lincoln, because he thinks people singing Happy Birthday is the BEST THING. We sang for Finnegan too, but he just wanted to eat the candle.

The one thing I never saw coming was that surprise bounce house from Minneola Bounce House Rentals. I was speechless of how awesome and fun it was.

Thank you as always to my parents, who were pretty much the only reason this party happened. Their help with cleaning and prep is invaluable. And thank you to everyone who came, it’s so wonderful to know that my kids have a village of both actual relatives and by-choice relatives to love them. Lincoln and Finnegan are both sufficiently celebrated!

We celebrated Lincoln’s 1st birthday party on Saturday with a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star themed party. I fell in love with the star idea while rocking Linc to sleep in his room – there have been glow in the dark stars on his ceiling since we bought the house. Plus I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he is a sparkly, twinkly baby personality-wise. He’s my little star.

You can check out my Lincoln’s First Birthday Pinterest board for a lot of the recipes and inspiration for all my ideas. I’m putting the post after a jump so all 2 bazillion photos aren’t on the front page for the next month…

(more…)

While I’m gone, I thought I’d repost some of my favorite stuff from the past few years. But an all-repeat post is kind of boring so here’s the details on the favor boxes I put together for Evan’s upcoming 3rd birthday party:

Boxes, twine and tag from In The Clear on Etsy

Dinosaur tattoos, stamp and toy from Oriental Trading Company

Dinosaur stamp from Melissa & Doug set I bought Evan

Custom “ROARRR! means I love you in Dinosaur” from Tickled Pink Paper + Ink on Etsy

Moss filler from the local dollar store

To be honest, I spent a long time thinking about these and putting them together and have do practically nothing else in preparation for the party. I figure I’ll toss around a bunch of moss and rocks and a few more toy dinosaurs and call it good. I’m even going to feed my guests store bought food and a cake I hired someone else to make. I figure with two toddlers of my own and a house full of guests I need to stop driving myself crazy doing EVERYTHING myself. Although I’m pretty sure I’ve said some version of that same sentence before every party I’ve thrown.

Here’s a trip down party memory lane:

Evan’s First Birthday: Circus (food, friends, decorations, photobooth)

Caroline’s Baby Shower: Nursery Rhymes

Evan’s Second Birthday: Bubbles, Balls & Balloons (decorations, food, friends)

Caroline’s First Birthday: Sparkle & Snow (party post, details)

Are you really, really hungry now? Sorry about that.

The Theme: Winter sparkle snowflake party, with glitter, pale pink and blue accents
The Location: The entire first floor of my house

This post is going to be HUGE, so if you have no interest at all in Caroline’s party please come back in a few days when it’s been bumped off the front page. I don’t want to put in a page break and have people think I’m trying to trick them into more page views. I get my page views the honest way – exploiting my children and friends!

The Decorations:

Dining room

Tree branch sprayed with snow-in-a-can

Ruffled crepe paper trees from this tutorial found on Pinterest

Living Room

Snowflakes cut from printer paper (Google “snowflake templates” for ideas)

My clothes pin photo display re-purposed as Caroline’s year in photos display!

Epsom salt in mason jars to look like snow

Glitter play dough party favors (more details in this post), yarn wreath, mirror frosted with snow-in-a-can

Yarn wreath, $1 picture frame ornament from Target

Chandelier decorated with dollar store garland & ornaments

Doily garland

The orange high chair didn’t match my theme, but a paper table cloth and a little tulle fixed it!

Fake snow everywhere!

The Food:

Hot cocoa and cocktail bar – the Keurig made it SO EASY!

I bought every single Christmas mug at Goodwill

Mini marshmallows, egg nog, powdered sugar, crushed candy canes, vanilla syrup, pink sprinkles, whipped cream, coconut flakes. Also on the bar: dark and milk hot cocoa, cider, Bailey’s, vanilla vodka, coconut rum, peppermint schnapps, mini candy canes.

Cucumber sandwiches, candy cane blossoms, red peppers & dip

Smoked salmon, dill & cream cheese on herb bread

Cupcakes (from a box!), my favorite frosting, edible sugar paper snowflakes bought at Stop & Shop

Sparkling cranberry brie bites. You know how sometimes you seen an idea on Pinterest and think “yeah, there’s no way that idea is going to be as awesome in real life”? This one was JUST AS AWESOME.

Thumbprint cookies, gooey vanilla sparkle cookies, fruit & dip, sugar cookies, ginger cookies, mini pastas on sticks with vodka, marinara, and alfredo sauce.

Coconut snowballs

Cream cheese mints, lemon meringues

The pasta on sticks was a great idea… for grown ups. Next time I’ll get less pointy things.

Milk bottle snow men. Not quiet as cute as on the interwebs, but still cute.

Lemon cake (more boxed mix!) tinted 3 shades of pink

Tiny cake baked in a tomato can, covered in sprinkles & topped with “Caroline” written in chocolate

Don’t even THINK about taking her cake away

The Fun:

Glitter play dough & cookie cutters on a kid-sized table

All the planned activities in the world can’t stop the kids from getting every toy out of the toy box

DIY pull string pinata (more here) was a hit, even though it didn’t work exactly as planned. I had to shake most of the candy out after the ribbon holding it up broke, but the kids didn’t care one little bit.

DIY snowglobes were cuter in theory than in reality. They were kind of leaky and some of the trees dyed the water purple and the glue was messy, but everyone went home with one!

Sharing strawberries with a friend

Refusing to wear her hair bow

Dance party!

These two are TROUBLE

Playing with Grandma

Somebody got a pony for her birthday! (She’s kind of scared of it though)

Family photos with two kids – there is ALWAYS someone not looking.

Holy crap, that was ridiculously long. I think I got all the links and recipes in there but if you’re looking for something let me know. My Pinterest board for the party (with most of the ideas I did use and some really good ones I didn’t get around to) can be found here.  I’m sorry most of the photos are terrible – it gets dark REALLY early here so I had to use the flash after the first 30 minutes of the party. It was definitely a great time and I know Caroline enjoyed herself. I hear everyone’s kids slept really well on Saturday night so I think they ran off all the sugar I pumped into them before they went home. Thank you to everyone who came and especially to my mother-in-law Carol who flew all the way from Ohio just to help me make the food and watch Little Evan for a few hours!

And Happy Birthday Caroline!

Here’s how it went down:

No, I’m not having a party for Caroline’s 1st birthday. It’s so close to Christmas, people will be out of town or busy with other stuff. I know, I’ll throw a Halloween party and that will get my need to throw a party every 6 months out of my system. I mean, obviously we’ll have a cake. A cake isn’t a party. I’ll make a really nice cake and put up some streamers maybe a few balloons. Let me just check the internet really quick for ideas.* Oooo look at these cute winter cupcakes I saw on the internet! I’ll just start a Pinterest board for Caroline’s First Birthday but it’s not like I’m going to invite a zillion people and make fifteen different kinds of cookies. Maybe just three. Ok seven. And I’ll make just a handful of invitations. Ok ten. Ok twenty five. And sure, Mother-in-Law, you should definitely fly in from Ohio for the party – I mean NON-PARTY – because it’s going to be amazing. Twinkle lights and sparkly snow and silver sequins and doilies everywhere. Hot cocoa bar! Hand cut snowflakes! Sparkles! GLITTER!!!!!!!!

Truly, I’m a little jealous MY birthday isn’t in December because it’s kind of awesome. Everywhere we go there are lights and ornaments and Christmas decorations and as far as Caroline is concerned they are all for her. Our family adventures are all super fun and usually end with candy canes. Everyone is full of well wishes and good cheer and my adorable little munchkin face red-headed elf baby shines where ever she goes. It’s magical.

Here’s a peek at what I’ve been working on for her just-a-tiny-bit overboard first birthday!

*WHOOPS. OBVIOUSLY, this is where things went downhill. Or uphill. Whichever way leads into the pile of magic twinkle lights, glitter and fake snow.