Grayson's 1st Birthday Party Was a "HOOT"!

By our standards, Grayson's first birthday part was a rather small, and intimate little party. We celebrated with just family, our little brood of course, aunts, cousins, and {some, but not all} grandparents. I made simple cupcakes, a simple little smash cake, and some not-so-pretty, but oh-my-gosh-SO-DELICIOUS owl cake pops.

The decorations doubled as props for his one year photos! I bought some letters at our local craft store and threw a coat of paint on them, picked up some balloons from Party City, and found the cute banner at Target for just a few bucks. I designed a little print for Grayson and found an awesome frame from the same craft store I purchased the letters. It's now in his room. ^_^

We visited with each other, enjoyed the yummy desserts, then sat back while Grayson destroyed his first birthday cake. After opening presents we called it a day! Doesn't get much more simpler than that.

With it being his first birthday, I wanted it to be special, but didn't feel the need for it to be over-the-top, the way I've done other parties. He isn't going to remember this party! He will know though, that those who loved him most gathered around to celebrate him on his first birthday. And that's all that matters in the end. :)

Hailey's Tea Party Birthday Celebration! {7 Months Late}

Hailey knew months before her birthday came exactly what she wanted to do! She wanted to have a tea party birthday! I set out and began planning right away. I searched thrift stores for tea cups and china, table clothes, frames, and other trinkets and treasures that would beautifully decorate a little girls tea party.

•"Keep calm and have a spot of tea."• I ran paper lunch sacks through the printer, used a decorative punch along the edge, folded it over and tied it off with a ribbin.• I filled an apothecary jar with Hershey kisses that just so happened to coordinate with the pinks, blue, and teals Hailey requested.• I found the 7 which was originally black and spray painted it white to commemorate her seventh birthday! ^_^• I ordered beautiful tea party cake pops from a local baker who makes AMAZING cake pops.• I chose a beautiful bouquet of meadow flowers {artificial of course} to accent the table.•

•I hunted high and low for the perfect table cloth and just never had any luck. While making a trip to Ikea I just so happened to browse the curtains where I found the most PERFECT pattern! Because they were curtains I didn't buy them right away, but at least I now had an idea of exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately I never could find fabric to use and ended up making a trip back to Ikea for the curtains to use as the table cloth and no one even knew that it was actually a curtain!• I found pink chinese lanters, and a garland of flowers, and made the remaining "puffs".• Hailey's Grandmother has a beautiful little tea pot collection she shared with us. They were in the most adorable shapes; a couch with a cat, a sewing maching, a cupcake, and a little cottage.•

•A tea party wouldn't be complete with cucumber sandwiches  These were a request from the birthday girl and a MUST-HAVE. We served them along side deli roll-ups on a 3 tiered tray made from tea cups and saucers.• I found the cutest pink "H" at one of our local craft stores and it accented the table beautifully!• Cream puffs were piled high upon a tray that I had give little makeover just for the party. {A little spray pain and ribbon go a long way.}• Here is a closer look at the beautiful and DELICIOUS cake pops.• Another print I made wishing my Hailey Jo a very happy 7th birthday.•

Normally I wouldn't want to compare my beautiful 7 year old to a popular movie prositiute {HA!} but how Julia Roberts Pretty Woman is this?!?! LOL This is one of my most ♥favorite♥ photos from the special day.

The girls got to chose what part of a tea set they would like to paint and got to create their own little masterpiece.

After painting their little cups, saucers, and tea pots they decorated cupcakes. There were all sorts of shapes, colors, and things to sprinkle over the cupcakes.

And of course we had tea time! A tea party would not be complete without tea. :) {Although very quickly we realized that little girls do NOT love tea. and it turned out to be a "lemonade in tea cups" party.



{Aren't her lashes to DIE for?! People pay good money to have things glued onto them to make them look like they have those lashes right there. And look at that pinky! ^_^}

Hailey's party was so fun, and so special! I loved that we were able to use special family heirlooms and collections mixed with new finds that we love for all time! I never would have thought that a tea party would be so fun to plan. But I loved it. :)

A Very Zombie Birthday

Joshua and I began collecting ideas for his 10th birthday about 9 months in advance. Originally he wanted to do a Lego birthday. I thought it was an awesome idea! As his birthday grew closer though he became unsure and was truly undecided as to what kind of party he wanted. I told him that it was completely up to him, but that he needed to let me know soon so that I could begin shopping, and crafting for the big day!

We spent COUNTLESS afternoons on the computer searching birthday websites and blogs for ideas. We tossed around ideas like a Hunger Games birthday, an army birthday, a Lego birthday, a science lab birthday, Star Wars, hunting/camo, Adventure Time, I could seriously go on and on.

Once we found it though, we knew INSTANTLY it was "the one".

ZOMBIES

There's no hiding the fact that my son and I are somewhat insanely zombie obsessed.I knew this was going to be just as fun for me to plan as it was going to be for him to celebrate!

Inspiration was somewhat hard to come by. I couldn't really find any other zombie birthdays. But luckily when it comes to zombies I have all I need to become inspired right at home!

This was Joshua's 10th birthday. DOUBLE DIGITS! So I wanted this to be a big bash.

{Clockwise} I was able to find some awesome bags from Oriental Trading! I bought test tubes from Amazon and filled them with nerds. They were the 'zombie antidote'. I found zombie necklaces, and my favorite, syringe pens! They were the zombie 'vaccine'.

I lucked out and our local Dollar Tree had "CAUTION: ZOMBIES!" tape, and even blood splatter window clings, complete with a bloody smeared hand print. :)

I made good old fashioned Jello dirt cups, and stuck some zombie hand cupcake toppers in them, topped with a gummy worm.

I found an awesome recipe for "swamp" cake and thought it would make a GREAT graveyard cake. After adding some zombie hand cupcake toppers, eyeballs, and various other severed body parts it looked perfectly zombiefied and almost too disgusting to eat!

We had a "Zombie Outbreak Response Team" kit filled with survival gear that you would need to survive the zomie apocolypse. Rope, a canteen, flashlight with batteries, various bandages, a screwdriver, etc. These were the prizes you could pick from if you won a game!

{The "Let's Paint the Town Dead!" table cloth was from BirthdayDirect.com, along with the blood splattered gauze, plates, cups, and zombie hand cupcake picks.}

{Clockwise} We had a "zombify station" where our party guests could get into character. We had make-up, fake blood, bloody bandages, and zombie teeth to help give them the perfect zombie look!

I lucked out because my mom had a brain Jello mold! We made it into a worm filled Jello brain.

"Pin the Brains on the Zombie"! {I would have loved to see the face of whoever printed that out at Staples! lol} We had to have some zombie games and what's more perfect than feeding a zombie some brains? When I first thought of the game I just assumed we would pin the brain to the zombie's head where his brain would go. But after having it printed and hanging it I decided that we should do the obvious and pin the brain to where it SHOULD be. The zombie's mouth!

Okay, so technically these are mummies, and mummies aren't zombies, but they ARE the walking dead. So close enough right? I just called them "walking dead dogs".

A closer look at how the table came together.

{Clockwise} The birthday boy! I think the smile means good things. :)

The zombie walk!! First we had a zombie walk, where each guest did their best zombie impression one by one. Then we did a zombie race! But you couldn't just run, you had to move how a zombie would move.

We used a bandage as a blindfold and the guests got to try their best to get the brain to the zombie's mouth.

A zombie hoard!

{Clockwise} A zombie party wouldn't be complete without Ghoul Aid! I started with a recipe I found online and just added a few things here and there until we ended up with something yummy but completely gross looking!

"DO NOT ENTER: dead inside"

Zombie cake pops! I did my best to make some living dead cake pops. Some zombie had their eyes gouged out, some had nasty zombie teeth, some had mohawks, some were bald. They were as different and unique as real zombies! And they were delicious...

"CAUTION: zombies ahead"

Another shot of the graveyard cake, this time with 10 candles for the birthday boy!

{CLOCKWISE} After "pin the brains on the zombie" our zombie became a target for target practice! Nerf bullets were dipped in fake blood to mark where they hit. {It served to purposes, we knew where the bullets hit, and it created a really cool splatter effect!}

The boys chowing down!

Taking aim at the zombies brain.

This was one of my favorite pictures of the day. Grayson just stood by observing all of the chaos and activities with his little hands behind his back! It was precious. :)

Joshua making a wish and blowing out the candles!

The zombie party was definitely a success! The food was good, the guests had a blast, the activities were fun and prizes were won. When the goodie bags were handed out and everyone headed home we were POOPED.

This was hands down my most favorite party to plan! I hope Joshua will look back and remember this party for the rest of his life!

An Olivia Party

Okay, so ever since Grayson's "Hello Baby" meet-the-baby party I've been somewhat obsessed with...I actually don't really know what to call it. I wouldn't say party planning, so much as party design maybe? I had so much fun designing all of the little favors, decorations, and doo dads for G's party I couldn't wait for Joshua and Leah's upcoming birthdays! Joshua was SO indecisive and in the end decided to ditch the birthday party all together and just have a day of fun with his dad. But I still had Leah and her party to pull together!

From the get-go Leah had a really hard time deciding between Olivia and Yo Gabba. I would spend almost every evening searching Olivia and Yo Gabba parties, showing her pictures of birthday cakes, and decorations. Finally, she made her decision and went with Olivia and I was SO excited to get to work!

My original plan was to just order the birthday set online, with the cups, plates, napkins, balloons, etc. and only make a few things to add. Well with extremely low funding it came down to either a birthday present or ordering a super expensive party kit online. Obviously I'm going to go with the birthday present. {Plus, I kinda sorta ran out of time and shipping would have been out the rear end for the supplies to be here in time.}

I had already put together a few things. A banner with Leah's name, and cupcake toppers. But the party would definitely need more than that to be a true Olivia birthday party! I made another, longer banner for the table, treat bag labels, straw labels, and a little 5x7 print for the table. That combined with blue and red balloons, table clothes, bowls, plates, and napkins and it turned out PERFECTLY!

I was so worried about it being "Olivia" enough, but I think I was able to pull it off...

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Hello Baby!

Grayson's Woodland Creature 

"Meet the Baby" Party

{The Invitation}

Top Left: Toadstool Cupcakes Top Right: Acorns!
Middle Left: Wishes for Grayson Middle Right: Goodie Bags, baggies with river rock candy, and a woodland animal cookie cutter.
Bottom: The whole table! Lots of yummy foods, bottled water with matching labels, and mason jars w/ ice for ice cold lemonade!

Left: Owl Cake!
Middle Top: River Rock candy Middle Bottom: Cupcakes w/ Cupcake Toppers and Cookies
Right Top: Utensils with napkin rings. Right Bottom: Sign and Banner

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