Stella's Unicorn Party

Way back in September, Stella turned 5, we waited to celebrate with a friend party until after we moved into our current apartment.  The new place was mostly settled and the birthday girl was happy to invite her friends into her new home.

The party was right after school on the day that I nannied away from home, so everything had to be set up the night before and the morning of the party. It was a little bit crazy that day, but I like to think it added to the excitement.

Stella is a girl who knows what she wants and she had some very specific requests and plans for the party.

-go on a hunt for something, unicorn-ish, like our last party

-snap a group photo of her and her friends: both smiling and silly photos

-play a game

-serve cupcakes in a jar with pink frosting

-include colored pictures (made by her) for all of her guests in the favors

-display her hand drawn unicorns as decorations on the day of the party

For the hunt, I made little Unicorn hair clips for all the girls, inspired by these.

The girls played "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" (or "Pin the Corn on the Uni" as Jeremy liked to call it. "Shouldn't it be called a Unihorn?  I mean, that thing on its head isn't a corn, right? Pretty sure it's a horn" he says.).  I painted the unicorn and then cut horns out of felt.

It was simple. I wish I had snapped a photo of the table, but I'll blame that on the party being right after school and my being away from home before hand. That photo wasn't one of the birthday girl's requests anyways. ;)

We keep our parties pretty simple and try to pull off something memorable and special for the kids while keeping things under a very small budget, Jeremy is in school after all, so our whole life is under a very small budget.  Sometimes having such a small budget can be frustrating, but other times it stretches my creativity and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

One more thing:  the banner in the first photo above has become a part of all the parties we throw. That project and the finished bag I shared in my post yesterday are projects from this sewing e-course. The bag and the banner along with this are some of my favorite things I've sewed and I can't wait to start my next project, a sewing machine cover, maybe I can start that one this afternoon.

If you need me, I'll be in the studio,
Diane 

Hello 33!

Today is my birthday.  Hello 33!

 All month long, a small pile of envelopes has been growing at our house.  Each one with very strict handwritten instructions,  “do not open until January 19,”  and carefully hidden away in the kids’ closet. Yesterday, they brought the collection out and put it on the dining table along with their beautifully wrapped gifts in anticipation of today. One of the best things about this birthday is watching their excitement. I totally get it, I feel the same way on their birthdays.


Time to celebrate!

someone is having a birthday today!

Five years ago today, Stella was born.  We didn't quite make it to the hospital in time and to all of our surprise she was born on the bathroom floor at our home. Jeremy caught her as she came out.  We managed to squeeze sweet baby Stella, me, Jeremy, two EMTs, a couple of fireman and Jeremy's mom into our teeny tiny bathroom and hallway while the EMT's cut the umbilical cord. 

All modesty flies out the window when you give birth but I did always feel a little funny after Stella's birth, when I went grocery shopping alongside the fireman doing their grocery shopping, wondering if they were some of the men squeezed into our bathroom and hallway and you know saw me right after giving birth-can we say awkward!?!

Stella brings such a sweet, creative, funny and thoughtful spirit to our family. We love her so much!!! Today is her special day and she is very excited to go apple picking with her classmates on a field trip and I am very excited to join her!

Happy Birthday Stella!

someone had a birthday last month

A couple of years ago, Emma and I were reading through her Highlights High Five magazine a few weeks before her birthday. We read a recipe for Banana Split breakfast and Emma requested it for breakfast on her upcoming birthday. It was a hit that year and has been ever since.  Keeping with tradition we started out her day with a festive table and her very special banana split breakfast.

It was a school day so she went off to school and patiently waited all day for a trip to The Magic House after school.  The kids LOVE this place!

After The Magic House we headed home for our Friday night tradition: family movie night, homemade pizza and this time birthday cake.

A few weeks later we had a birthday party with her friends from school. Emma's had a few requests for her party: eating cupcakes in a jar, weaving placemats and hunting for real teacups that her friends could quote "take home and keep forever...or until they break." :)

Below the girls are peaking out the window and waiting for their friends to arrive!

The streamers were made by taping a bunch of strips of receipt paper to a yard stick that Jeremy hung above the table. The blue cake plate was found at Homegoods a while back.  I found some vintage plates and candle holders at the Goodwill outlet and made the small cake plates that night before the party.

First we weaved place mats!

Then we went on a teacup hunt.  I found more than enough vintage teacups at the Goodwill Outlet and payed under $3 for all of them!  I wrapped them up in a brown paper bag and secured it with a cute paper straw.

After the teacup hunt, we had our tea party! Our "tea" was apple juice b/c we're bigger fans of the tea party idea and not so much the actual flavor of tea. The girls used their newly woven place mats and drank out of their very own teacups.

The party came together pretty easily and under a small budget. I sent Evites rather than a paper invitations and most of the decorations and the table linens were items we already had.  We only purchase a few things for the party which included teacups for the hunt (those were their favors too) paper to weave place mats, jars for the cupcakes (those will be put to use again) and we couldn't resist picking up some cute paper straws to make drinking water a bit more festive.

so very fairy

We had a little celebration before we moved. It was a fairy celebration for our sweet six year old.

She requested a fairy theme, with a fairy hunt, a fairy song written for and sung to her and her guests by her daddy, and toadstools for her and her guests to sit on while having cake at a matching toadstool table.

We had a pretty tight budget and a short amount of time to pull the party together. In the end, we were able to grant all of her requests, be resourceful and most importantly, give her a special memory with some of her besties before our big move.

My inspiration for the invitations and the fairies came from some blogs I follow in my reader. The favors came together while walking through Hobby Lobby and while searching through my stash at home. The toadstool table and chairs and the fairy craft came together during a trip to the dollar store.

The Invitations:

My inspiration for the invites came from The Willows Home blog. I already had all of the supplies on hand to create the invitations. I wrote each of the guest's names on the front and all of the party info was listed on the back. These were hand delivered to the guests, which was a definite highlight for the birthday girl.

The Fairies:

I found the idea for the fairies at this inspiring blog. This was another budget friendly project; my only expense here was time. They were very easy to make with strips of fabric, mod podge and some acrylic paint. I made enough for each of the guests to find one on the fairy hunt and an extra for the birthday cake.

The Favors:

We headed to Hobby Lobby when the baskets were 50% off and picked up some small baskets for the favors. Then, I headed to the wood section at the store and we picked out some "accessories" for the fairies. Pictured below: spools, bowls, a rolling pin, flower pots and a plate.

The girls and I decided the fairies also needed a leaf to sleep on, so they drew me a leaf shaped pattern that I then used to cut leaves out of green felt. We found the fabric yo-yo "pillow" and the felt flower "placemat" in the girls craft supplies.

The last item to go in the baskets was a fairy sized toadstool.

I had the spools left over from another craft project and the wood bowls also came from Hobby Lobby. I painted the bowls red, hot glued them to the spool upside down and then asked the girls to paint white dots on top.

Toadstool Table and chairs:

I purchased a plastic table cloth at the dollar store and the girls and I covered it with white circle labels from Office Depot.

The stools are made from boxes of oatmeal covered with white paper. Then we taped red plates, from the dollar store, on top and covered them with more white labels.

Fairy craft:

I found some butterfly wall decals at the dollar store. I thought those would make perfect fairy wings and the colors were just right for our color scheme. I cut triangles from some thrifted fabric, then the girls glued their fairies to purple paper and added faces, arms and legs.

I knew this would happen: Right before the guests arrived we received a call from a realtor to show our house at 1pm. The party started at 11am, so that gave us about a two hours to celebrate with 6 girls and get the house ready for showing.

Sheesh.

So we fairy hunted, fairy crafted, serenaded, and celebrated and had a great time. Then my dear friend arrived and took all the kids outside, while Jeremy and I ran through the house cleaning. Then another dear friend arrived and started hauling all our extra clutter out to our car, and she lit all the "make the house smell nice for the potential buyer" candles for us.

That was the fastest post-party clean up I have ever experienced.

It is always fun to hear how others celebrate birthdays. Do you have any special traditions you do with your kids? Do you have friend parties or family parties? Please share!

Five

5 has been a pretty important number around here lately. Since last Wednesday, Emma has taken on the roll of being a 5 year old with much enthusiasm and energy...good thing because this little girl has had quite a few new experiences.



For example:

Her first dress rehearsal and dance recital. Her first time to ever stand on a stage and perform. We were so proud of her. She loved it! And for me, I can't tell you how fun and amazing it was, as her mama, who danced for years, to dress her up in her costume, sit with her in rehearsal, hang out with her in the dressing room, touch up her make-up, and watch her perform. All of the memories come flooding back. It's good to be a mama.

dress rehearsal:


back stage of recital:


Her first swim lessons. It has been fun and scary for her. She made a sweet new friend the first day. She is brave and cautious. This is new territory for us.



Her first jewelry box, with a ballerina dancing.



Her first set of classics to read: Little Women, Heidi and Black Stallion. I think it's time to sign her up for the summer reading club at the library.

and, I had to include a photo of Stella, especially this one.



I love these girls so much.

Speaking of 5, tomorrow, we find out if the fifth member of our family will be a boy or a girl.

a little celebration

We had a family party on Saturday for Stella.

Saturday morning, she saw the present from us on our bed and said, "Stella's party, that's my present." I stepped out our room for a moment, came back, and she was up on our bed opening the gift. I caught her before she got a really good peek.

We decorated our own cupcakes. My sister-in-law Janee', whipped these up for us along with lots of colorful frosting to make them pretty. We used party decorations from Emma's first birthday, her 3rd birthday and a bridal shower I hosted for my friend ( I bought them for her shower, but I forgot to use them. They now have a one year old. Yes, I have held on to them for awhile.)

I had big plans for Stella's party decor. The only non-recycled party paraphernalia we did have were the Happy Birthday plates and napkins that I purchased on Friday. The same day she woke up EARLY in the a.m and threw up all over Jeremy.

After another, less dramatic episode and a couple of baths for Stella, we all went back to bed.

So, that is when I decided we would be doing good if we had birthday gift for her and some plates.


Back to the party:
Emma is a pro at unwrapping, Stella will be a pro come Christmas.

She loved this card with the bears. I think it is the only card she actually stopped to look at.

With each card opened, she shouted "Happy Birthday to me!"

The girls have been enjoying all the lovely gifts.

I am excited several of them can be included in our homeschooling.

she's 2!

She turned 2 today!

She requested (a few times) that we sing Happy Birthday to her, "sing happy birday to me" and an adorable grin covered her face as we sang her the song. She has also mentioned a few times that her cousin Robert, who is 1, is going to tickle her.

Stella has some lovely and newly developed habits. She now naps with her boo bunny, the soft little bunny with a frozen insert for bumps and bruises. Boo bunny only joins her for naps and trips to the library. At the end of the day, when we offer her boo bunny for bedtime, she declines, so we return he/she to the freezer overnight and retrieve it the next afternoon for naptime.

And her other little morning routine: when we get her up in the morning for breakfast, we not only get Stella, but her elephant, her piggy, her pillow and her blanket. The she snuggles with us and her entourage for a little bit until breakfast.

Happy Birthday Stella!

goodby June, hello July

One of the big events of June, was celebrating Emma' s birthday with a party. And do we know how to party....the theme was birdwatching. And as you can imagine a house full of little ones looking for birds is not your average bird watching scene, it was in fact, pretty exciting. We invited family and friends that live around the neighborhood.

I thought I would give you the run down on the shindig, in case your youngster spends a good bit of time each week watching for birds, like Emma, and would like to celebrate turning another year with their own birdwatching party.

The invites were simple, I just used one of Martha's bird stamps. I can't really show you a photo at the moment, b/c it has our address on it. So I will do my best to describe it for you.

I purchased some waste not paper over sized pink tags, with green envelopes, a few months ago on clearance. I printed the party info on a light grey paper, cut it down to a square, to fit on the tags, then I stamped the bird image onto the grey paper.

My sister in law, Kelly, made the cake-I know, it was amazing. The birdhouse is a rice crispy cookie covered in her homemade fondant.

The activities included decorating there own binoculars. Then the kids spent a good bit of time looking out our windows, through their binoculars for birds. We did this while we waited for all of the guests to arrive. And the kids loved it. My mother in law made the binoculars. She recycled toilet paper rolls, painted them black and attached colorful strips to each pair, along with a black strap.

Here is a picture with my adorable nephew with his pair.

Games:

The girls and I painted some paper birds a few weeks ago. We hung those up around the house and the kids went on a "bird hunt" once they found a bird, they pulled it of the wall. The bird they found, was then used for the next game, "pin the bird on the nest"


We painted the tree a few weeks ago. We used some matboard that I have hung onto for two moves, not sure why....


The final game, was musical nests. We played "little bird", by Elizabeth Mitchell, during the game. Each nest had a different number of eggs, who ever landed on the nest with 4 eggs when the music stopped, won a prize. We played until everyone won a prize of playdo.



For the favors, I kept it simple. We gave each guest a bird feeder made with a pinecone, peanut butter and birdseed, the playdo they one in the game and a kuzoo. Emma really likes kuzoos, and all the parents really like us for giving their kids kuzoos.



And a few shots of the decor. I displayed two of Emma's scrapbook albums for decoration and the occasional perusing.



Jot it down: Emma spotted and endangered bird in our backyard a few months ago, a golden cheeked warbler. She pointed out the bird, but our bird expertise, not being quite up to snuff, we could not identify it. We looked it up in some bird books and discovered it was endangered.
Go Emma! We have started to jot down in the books when, where and who spots the different birds.