Lego Birthday Party

Saturday was Izzy's THIRD birthday!  I can not believe that my little baby is growing up so fast.  She is such a delight to us all, and our family went above and beyond to make sure that her birthday was special.  Legos are her favorite, so we went with a Lego themed birthday party.  Here is how I did it:

Being a working mom of two toddlers does not allow for much extra time to plan a party.  Thankfully, Legos were a fun, easy thing to incorporate into many different areas of the day.  The dining room table became the building area.  We had 7 sets of Legos constructed for the kids who all joined in, sharing the pieces, building new things and having a blast. 

Here are a few of the Disney Lego Duplo sets we had at the party: 

Jake and the Neverland Pirates - Bucky the Pirate Ship
Jake and the Neverland Pirates - Neverland Hideout
Planes - Skipper's Flight School

The cake was one of my favorite parts!  Three cake mixes (modified) later, and I had a giant Lego cake!  I made 2 sheet cakes and 6 cupcakes, cut the cupcakes in half and turned the bottom part upside down and iced the entire thing.  Instead of "LEGO" on the tops, I put Izzy's name. 

Thanks to House Party, I had some awesome Lego stickers and coupons to pass out, and for our part of the party favors, I went to Central Market's bulk section and found Lego shaped candies.  How fun is this!  I built a Lego shape in my Cricut and cut them out and glued them on for the top portion which I stapled to individual baggies.

We also had a Jake and the Neverland Pirates episode playing in the den for anyone who wanted to have a seat and watch.  Since it went along with the Lego sets, it sort of fit with the theme :)

The kids had an absolutely fantastic time and I loved getting to throw a party for my very favorite 3 year old girl.  Izzy, here's hoping your year is the best.  Mommy loves you!!

Goin to the Chapel and We're...

As I have mentioned in a previous post, my sweet cousin Katie is getting married in November.  Saturday, my family and I threw her a wedding shower at my house.  I had such a fun time planning this party.  I am not going to lie, I spent HOURS on Pinterest finding ideas and planning every detail.  This was pretty much a Pinterest party.  Here are a few photos by Lisa Pittman of the event, along with links to some of the projects I created.

I wanted this party to be as colorful as possible.  I think we succeeded!  This is a photo of the table.  At the end of the table, you can see one of the decorations I made.  I made several tissue paper poofs and used them around the living room and one one the table.  Also on the table are Garlic Chicken Puffs, made by my aunt Jerri.

Here we see a photo of Nutella Cake in a Jar.  I was in charge of this particular project, and at first I was worried that this was going to be an epic failure, but after only a few failures, I finally got them to work.  The recipe on Pinterest calls for a pint sized jar, and I used baby food jars instead, which needed only 45 seconds in the microwave.  I was really worried that they were going to stink, but apparently they were awesome, because they were all gone and neither me or my Aunt got one at all!

One of my favorite food items at the shower were mini Pop Tarts on a Stick, made by my mom.  They were so good!  And apparently pretty easy, though the strawberry jam did seep out a bit around the stick.  I like that you can personalize these with sprinkles that would match your decor.

Sometimes the simple things are the things that turn out to be quite beautiful.  My aunt and I were trying to figure out what to do for beverages, and at a shopping trip to Aldi, she found sparkling juices which turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to our colorful food.

I hate the idea of games at showers, but we did have 2 things that gave Katie something to take home to remember the shower, and also got everyone involved (one intentional, and one not).   In the invitations, I sent a recipe card to everyone invited, asking them to write down their favorite recipe to share with Katie.  I was happily surprised that almost everyone brought theirs back for her!  I think this is a great thing to do at a kitchen shower.  One of our cousins even brought all of the kitchen utensils necessary to make her recipe as her gift.  I thought that was a great idea!

 Our other "activity" was quite unintentional, but ended up being hilarious and crazy fun.  I found a great wedding shower card for Katie at Border's book store - 60% off even!  Do you remember the old fish fortune tellers that would curl or flip based on the temperature of your hand?  Well, this was the same idea, only with a groom instead of a fish, and the fortune was about your relationship.

We all laughed so hard at the fortunes of the married women in the room.  Mine was "true love forever."  Big shock there ;)  The ones that were so funny were my cousin Charla, whose "groom" flipped  over about 3 times, meaning "I didn't know you were so... umm... adventurous." And my sweet Meme, who's groom flipped over as well.  She was a little embarrassed because we laughed so hard some of us were in tears.

And of course, as always, my daughter was a little ham and had a great time.  She is going to love her birthday and Christmas - ripping all the paper and playing with the boxes!

All in all, I think the shower was a smashing success.  So happy for you, KK!

Shower Invitations

My cousin, Katie, is a wonderfully unique individual.  We are close in age, and though we grew up in different cities, we have always enjoyed spending time together.  I am so happy that she has found Hunter, the man she will marry at the end of November this year.  To celebrate their upcoming nuptials, my family and I are throwing Katie a wedding shower at my house in next weekend.

I think I would like to be a party planner - especially with the help of Pinterest.  I adore planning a menu, making decorations, and planning all the details of a party.  And I love having parties at my house!

For this party, I felt like it was a good time to completely redo my living room ceiling, paint and redecorate - ok, ok, I didn't actually feel that way.  My ceiling dictated that I must do that because of a huge AC leak in my attic that soaked through the ceiling in our front room.  But now, the living room is a beautiful shade of grey and ready for me to nest, hehe.  I can not wait until the ceiling is done tomorrow so that I can get in there and get started!

Anyway, back to the shower.  I struggled for weeks with what theme to go with for the shower.  I had thought about doing a Vintage themed shower with aprons and depression glass and all that girlie stuff, but that just didn't seem to fit.

During a light bulb moment, I decided against a "theme" persay, and went with color inspiration.  Black, white and bright colors.  Seemed to be the perfect thing for Katie, and I had all sorts of ideas for a fun, non traditional shower.


More on the details after the event, but I wanted to show you the invitations I created.  This was so easy!  I used black card stock, a white opaque marker, a yellow paint pen, bright colored paper, and a stamp I found at Michael's for a dollar!  I had fun making these and I am already brain storming how to make the invitations to Isabel's first birthday!

Here's a sneak peak at the shower invitations: