My Renovation Blog

Saturday, October 6, 2012

You Are My Sunshine - Breakfast Birthday Party

I wanted to do a small very low key party for Ella's 3rd birthday because I have Everett's big 1st birthday less than two months away so I only invited her very best friends and kept it as more of a playdate (no dads allowed!)...except that I have a sickness that causes me to go overboard decoration-wise...so this is my "low key" 3rd birthday breakfast pajama party...
**Links and instructions to everything are at the bottom of the post

Invitation...
Photobucket Photobucket

Wreath on front door...

My mom made suns for the front yard...
Photobucket

Food Table...
PhotobucketPhotobucket PhotobucketPhotobucket

 Kids' Tables...

Clear cups were for cereal...
PhotobucketPhotobucket

Smash eggs...

Banners & Signs...
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Bean Bag Game...
Photobucket

Make your own Fruit Loop bracelet...
PhotobucketPhotobucket

Favors...
Photobucket

The "mom" table (coffee, oj, donuts)...
Photobucket

This is the best I could do and not everyone is in the photo...
Photobucket

Love this girl...she made a "sandwich" of a donut surrounded by 2 pancakes!
Photobucket

My very favorite photo of the whole morning...
Photobucket

I have to add for posterity...I was grumbling (in my head) about how once again I went overboard, spent too much time, too much stress on a party, blah, blah...so yesterday, I'm doing stuff for the party and out of nowhere Ella says, "mommy thank you for doing all this for my party".  She made it all worth it!

And to keep it all together...here are the links for Ella's FIRST birthday party and her SECOND birthday party.

Almost forgot- close ups of the pajamas I made her...
PhotobucketPhotobucket

The goods...

Invitations: Frog Prince Paperie- she has tons of cute paper goods!  All the banners, stickers and signs are from the party pack that came with the invitation.
Wreath: Basically the same as my Jute Wreath, but you use yarn.  I hot glued the grosgrain ribbon on and then glued on the felt suns (I printed out a sun from online, cut it out & traced it).
Cookies: For the suns, I used this Wilton cookie cutter that you can get at Joanns.  For the circles, I have a tin like this- it's great to have around since it cuts so many sizes.  I used a size 2 tip for all the frosting (outlining, dots, suns) except to flood the cookies- I always use these.  I bought a bunch at Sur la Table one day!
Marshmallows: I put a bamboo skewer into each marshmallow then dipped them into yellow candy melts (melted in a glass bowl in the microwave and added a bit of vegetable oil) then dipped them in white nonpareils.
"Bacon & Eggs": SO easy!  Explanation here.  I used white candy melts instead of white chocolate chips (and added a bit of vegetable oil).  Be careful when removing from the wax paper because they break easily!
Bean Bag Game: Gary made this for me...all you have to do is screw the buckets onto a piece of wood (duh!)- Gary used 4 screws per bucket, but I'm sure you could use just one?  I bought number stickers at Joanns in the scrapbooking section.  They weren't sticking very well so I put a layer of clear nail polish over each number...now they aren't going anywhere. ;)
Smash Eggs: Carefully break just the very end of the egg and drip out all the insides.  Rinse out with water and dry upside down.  Fill eggs just a bit with confetti.  Cut out little circles or squares of tissue paper (I used a 2 inch scalloped edge punch) and put glue all around the edge of the tissue circles and glue over the opening.  Smash on someone's head!
Centerpieces:  Clean baby food jars. Use an electric drill to drill holes in top of lids.  Spray paint the lids with your desired color.  Fill with Lemonheads (what I used), M&Ms, Bubblegum, anything that matches your theme.  My suns were cut using a Cricut cutter, but if you don't have one, just print out a big sun from the internet and then trace onto paper.  I used flat wooden stick from Joanns and glued one sun to each side.  My sticks weren't long enough so I had to stick them just slightly through the hole in the lid and then hot glue gun underneath the lid so they would stay up and stick out far enough.
Treat Boxes: Oriental Trading.

 Photobucket

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Water Babies

Everett and Gavin love the water table!


Monday, October 1, 2012

Everett 10 Months


Mr. Smiley is 10 months old today!  Nothing much has changed from last month- he is still super happy and very easy.  He eats about the same and still wears a size 3 diaper, but I did an unofficial weight check today, and he weighs about 19 pounds!  He only weighed 17 lbs. 13 oz. last month.  Hopefully that means he'll get some meat on his bones!


He is crawling all over the place, pulling up on anything but still no cruising.  He isn't really into any particular toys, but he is more interested in what his sister is doing.

Ella and Everett at 10 months...
PhotobucketPhotobucket

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Tantrums & Parties

BAD: It happened.  Ella threw her first ever tantrum in public today.  Two actually.  It was mortifying.  I always look at those people at Target with kids that are screaming and melting down and think, "those poor parents- I'm so lucky that MY baby girl NEVER does that."  Oh, but it got better.  Because her stellar behavior was rewarded by getting to go to a birthday party...where she proceeded to tantrum (albeit mini meltdowns) TWO more times.  Awesome.  Who was it that told me 3 is a million times worse than 2?  Oh yeah, everyone.  HELP ME.

GOOD: We went to Gavin's (Everett's bestie) 1st birthday party!  Isn't he so cute?

One of my very favorite families!

The theme was Southern BBQ, so I made Ella a dress to match the theme. :)
PhotobucketPhotobucket

Jill did a great job decorating- everything looked so cute!
PhotobucketPhotobucket  

Ella had a great time running around...

Hanging out with Everett...

And hitting the pinata...

There was even a lady with a giant bunny.  See the kids faces...is that a bunny or a dog?!

Everett was his usual chill self (I love when he does this- it's the only time he cuddles!)...

Despite her questionable behavior, Ella was a happy girl most of the time!