A Paris Birthday Party

Macaroon "lollipops".

At the end of October, Gabby celebrated her 4th birthday.  Since she goes to a French school, she decided she wanted a Paris-themed birthday party.  (This also happened to be more fun for mom to plan than the Dora-themed party that she had previously considered.)

Instead of traditional cupcakes this year, I made pretend macaroons by cutting of the tops off two mini cupcakes and putting frosting in between them.  We also enjoyed croissant sandwiches, quiche, crepes and madeleines.

The decor was easy since all I had to do was pull out relics from my time living in Paris.  Gabby had also used pink & gray colors for a previous birthday party, so I was glad that we kept things like her pom-pom decorations.

It was supposed to be a fancy parisian lunch, so when the kids arrived, the girls received a necklace and a ring and the boys received a bow tie.  They also had to use a passport to enter France.  The passports I made had stickers inside and I had intended for them to use them at each activity, but we pretty much forgot about them.  For games, the kids went to the Louvre and colored the Mona Lisa and did some random chicken toss into a boat on the Sienne.

They also played "Pin the Tourist on the Eiffel Tower", a game that I may have invented myself the night before.

I did feel a little bad when Gabby blew out her candles.  They were out for a moment and then relit themselves.  Oops - I bought trick candles on accident!  Who does that to a four-year-old?

Gift time was a little crazy with 18 children at her party.  They all crowded around in excitement.

Gabby had a great time celebrating with all of her friends.

One behind-the-scenes helper that saved me was "Aunt" Jen.  She thought she was coming as a guest to Gabby's party, but she ended up running half of it.  Thanks, Jen!

The kids all went home with a box of goodies and little toys, including some Euro chocolate coins and some other French specialties that I found at World Market.  The box was topped off with a (real) macaroon cookie from a local French bakery that I put on a stick to look like a lollipop.  The ribbon says, "Ooh La La" - a fun find.  Merci to all who joined us!

Since the party was the day of Gabby's actual birthday, we opened family gifts that night.  Her favorites were a Hello Kitty watch and a Dream Light from Claire.

Claire Turns 2

On July 30th, we celebrated Claire's actual birthday as a family.  She was a little confused at why she had a party a week earlier, but was still only 1, so this day (and more presents) seemed to ease her confusion.

I think our children have learned at an early age that the better the reaction to a gift, the more people want to give gifts.  These girls get excited even before they recognize what the gift is.  It's great.

A bike helmet...

...plus a horse on a stick...

...equals an extra safe ride.

If you are having a birthday in our family, you get to request your favorite meal for dinner.  Claire picked macaroni & cheese and chicken.  It was an elaborate request, but I managed to boil that water alright.  :)  For dessert, she chose a raspberry tart, which seemed like a rather grown-up request, considering the other options I presented her with.

At her check-up the next day, we learned that Claire is 27lbs 3oz and is 33 inches tall.  She is under the 50th percentile, which is a first for us with either child.  (Gabby was 4 pounds heavier when she turned two.)  Luckily, they are both cute and healthy!

Claire's 2nd Birthday Party

Our little Claire turned 2!  To celebrate, we threw a "Bubbles and Brunch" party for her with some of her friends.  Plus, we celebrated while my family was in town, so the cousins were able to join in on the fun as well!

We began with some games:

(1) Find the fuzzy bubbles.  (An easter egg hunt equivalent, but with little fuzzy balls - always a hit)

(2) Pass the bubble beach ball around in the circle to music.  Yeah, I may have forgotten to prepare this game, so we followed whatever instructions happened to come out of my mouth next.

(3) Bubble madness with the bubble machine.  Enormous bubbles were also supposed to exist, but I completely forgot about it and the huge wand sat inside in its package the whole party.  Oops.

Claire at one point froze (as seen in bottom right photo) and stood like that in front of the bubbles for several minutes, despite the bubble chaos around her.

The good photos above (the top three) are courtesy of Elina Ylitalo.

It turns out the theme of bubbles/dots/circles is as easy as it gets.  You can find dots on just about anything.  I forgot to take a photo of the set up, but for food we had pancakes with sprinkles, eggs (they were supposed to be hard-boiled for the round effect, but I was met with resistance on that one), donut holes, blueberries, sprinkled animal cookies, bubbly orange juice, and chocolate milk with straws (for blowing bubbles).  And of course, my signature (can't mess-'em-up) cupcakes with sprinkles, mini ice cream cones and cream puffs for dessert.

I am not sure what Claire is wishing for, but it looks like she is pretty confident that it's going to happen.

Photo of Claire on the left, courtesy of Elina Ylitalo.

It seems the kids all had a good time.

And Claire certainly loved all of her great gifts.

Happy Birthday, Claire!

Claire

When Claire turned one, we had her pictures taken.  In the past we have always been rushing last minute, so this time I made sure we got their early - too early.  Somehow we were there an hour early!  Don't ask me how - I am not used to everything like traffic all going in my favor.  For an adult, an hour would not be a big deal.  For a child who has about a twenty-minute zone of happiness without snacks, this is a problem.  And I certainly didn't want to give her snacks that would get her white shirt messy for her photos.  Not to mention once you start feeding this girl, there is no stopping.  We barely managed, with the period of cute happiness expiring right when it was time for photos, but all things considered, it could have been worse.  Here are the shots we got:

Gabby wanted to join in for a couple of pictures.  She forgot to smile and I was so busy trying to keep Claire in the frame, that I forgot to actually tell Gabby to smile.

I tried to be creative, but Claire (who insisted on wearing this hat for the first hour while we were waiting) would have no more of it.

But she did not complain when I handed her a real cupcake....

Thanks, sweet Claire, for always making us smile!

Claire's First Birthday

Our lovely Claire turned one and we had a cherry picnic party for her.  It was a lot of fun to celebrate!

First came the decorations and food.  I still feel new to the kid's birthday party scene and what I have yet to accomplish is to have everything set up early enough to actually take pictures of it.  With my kids pulling on my ankles as I tried to set up, this is the best photo I have of the food table, even though I had not finished putting everything out.  Moms who succeed at this - what is your trick?

 I tried making red velvet cupcakes from scratch - a first.  I am still undecided if the taste is worth the extra effort.  The decorative details were fun to plan.  Most of my inspiration (including the water bottles with cherry suckers) came from stephmodo - I love her entire site.  We weighed down individual balloons with little bags of cherry sours.

Another resource for details was Etsy.

Claire had her first cupcake.

Although she really hesitated as to whether we were going to let her eat that whole thing by herself.

The gifts were all a hit... even to the guests.

Secret meetings were held under chairs.

Kid-sized ice cream cones were served.

Claire had trouble keeping hers off the ground.

One of the crafts was to color an ice cream treat or cupcake coloring page and glue a cherry on top.

Gabby took the cherry part a little too far.  She glued onto multiple sheets the rest of the day.

The kids all went home with their goodie boxes and a balloon and we were sad to see the party end.