Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts

Monday, July 20, 2015

1 Farm + Two special 2 year olds + Great friends and family + a HOT day = Max and Harper's Birthday Party

Long title? Check.
Late birthday post? Check.

Last Saturday my "babies" turned T-W-O! I am still shocked at how fast time is going. I am hopefully going to get individual update posts on each of them done today or tomorrow. For now, here is their birthday party post.

We did a farm themed birthday. I got their invitations from Justalittlesparkle on Etsy. They were adorable! She did great. She has lots of other amazing designs as well.

I also got their birthday outfits from different shops on Etsy. I ordered iron on decals of a cow and pig for their shirts from Scrapendipity Designs. I ordered Harper's skirt from Giggles And Grins Again and they customized the bandana skirt for me and even threw in a hairbow for free. She was delightful. I have never really had bad dealings with Etsy.





We had their party on their actual birthday. It was SO unbelievably hot and humid. But we all had a good time. There is this fantastic children's farm in a suburb of Kansas City on the Kansas side. Deanna Rose Farmstead is a fantastic place to visit, which we love doing, but an even greater place for a birthday party. They have a lot of different animals, activities, and luckily shaded birthday corrals and misters.

Each kid could do some of the activities like feeding bottles to goats, riding ponies, mining for gold, fishing, wagon rides, and hand feeding many other animals.

When everyone arrived at our "Pig Pen", we gave them tickets to activities and a map of the place. We asked all party guests to meet us back at the Pen for birthday cupcakes and gifts.

It was also great to have a way to lock in my crazy kids. 
As far as decorations went, I bought them! I made some last year and just didn't want to waste the time doing it this year. So, thanks to Hobby Lobby for the banner, table cloths, and bandana cupcake wrappers!

I did, however, make their cupcakes. I am not the decorating kind. I love baking. As an artist of any kind, I suck. Awhile back when I decided on the farm theme, I was searching Pinterest while sitting in my dad's hospital room. I found this picture of farm animal cupcakes and thought "Heck, I can do that." My dad agreed. So, I set out to make these cupcakes. Jeremy kept wondering if we would be able to do one of those Pinterest fail pictures. But they didn't turn out bad. Now, after being in the hot heat, some of them were melting...but they were still pretty darn cute!

My inspiration in the center. My creations around. 


My mom loaned me a few of Dad's bandanas to serve as decoration.
I loved that Dad was a part of the celebration. 


Max and Harper were troopers. No breakdowns from being tired and missing a good nap. I don't know why I insist that birthday parties be right in their nap time. Next year, I will be smarter. They loved seeing the animals and playing with friends.
































Max loves feeding the goats, Harper prefers to feed them outside the fence. 































One of my favorite things was seeing Max and Harper hand deliver their favor "barns" to their friends. I got the favor boxes from Oriental Trading Co. I also got the farm animal stickers and suckers from there as well. I got the farm animal figurines from Target, as well as the snacks. I made the rice krispie treat haybales. They turned out really cute. 



Overall, it was a great day. I can't believe these two precious kids are TWO. They are just the absolute best. I can't wait to gush on them more in later posts.




-Lisa-





Friday, July 25, 2014

Very Hungry Caterpillar Party (Late Post)

Better late than never. Their party was over two weeks ago now. I worked on crafts and such for the week before the party so I will highlight my handy-work...but fair warning...I am not a crafty person. Thank goodness for Pinterest! Ha!

I ironed on their customized transfers from Etsy. Adorable and affordable!
I made this banner out of cardstock, printed caterpillar and month labels, ribbon, hot glue, and clothespins. I saw the idea on Etsy and shamelessly made my own.
I printed out the many labels of what the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate in the book and glued them to colored cardstock. I put this around the food table. 
The clothespin banner turned out really cute. I printed their monthly picture collage that I have done all year. 
My attempt at this great Pinterest idea that I saw. 
They didn't quite hang the way I wanted but worked. 
We had their party at a great park in our city. It has a huge shelter house. We reserved the shelter house back in April. My worst nightmare occurred as I pulled up an hour before the party to decorate. There were a TON of people in the shelter. It was posted that we reserved the shelter but people apparently joined in anyway. I am not a confrontational person so going up to MULTIPLE (yes, about 5!) birthday parties and telling them we reserved this and they needed to leave. It was awful. A few people were angry. I explained and showed my proof of payment. I started off nice and cordial but the people that wanted to challenge me, I was probably less than nice to them. They eventually left and we had a lovely time.


Our favors! I just printed a thank you message (with caterpillar, of course!) and glued them to lollipops and favor bags.
We also had a bin of candy and bubbles.
The way I displayed the lollipops required some engineering. I had the plastic pails so filled with rocks from our flower beds. I then hot glued a half sphere of styrofoam. Then could just slide them in. 

I didn't get a close up picture of the cupcakes or cakes! Ugh! I made the cupcake toppers. I again, printed messages with caterpillars, 1, and their names. I then cut them out and glued them to colored popsicle sticks. Their smash cakes and cupcakes were done by our local grocery store and turned out great.



Some hotdog and watermelon before the festivities. 

We brought their wagon to the park to do their presents. Otherwise, they would have ran off a few minutes into it. 


Max loved the tissue paper. 

Great friends got them these Cozy Coupe cars. I love the personalized plates!

Definitely a favorite gift!

Harper refused to wear the hat.



















 It was such a fabulous day with family and friends. We loved it. So did they!




-Lisa-