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.

Halloween Party for the Kiddos

My friend, Amy, one of the original 3 amigos, knows how to throw a good halloween party.  And she didn't let being 9 months pregnant stop her this year.

 As always, cute decorations and food.

The kids had a good time eating lunch, playing games (pin the nose on the pumpkin shown here) and we were even given the special treat of watching our most recently trained hula dancer, Jane, put on a talented performance.

A Cookies and Milk Baby Shower

In October, I threw a "Cookies and Milk" baby shower for two wonderful friends of mine who conveniently planned to have their baby girls within a week of each other.  Before you complement me on any of the cute ideas or decor, you must know that I pretty much copied my friend, Marilee on everything.  She always throws the cutest parties and passed along some tips so that I could plan one of my own.  My favorites were the chocolate milk bottles (purchased from Costco and labels removed) with the "Enjoy!" tags seen above.

Jason appreciated the "to go" boxes, so that we were not left with cookie jars full of temptations following the party.  Thanks to the guests that brought homemade cookies!

Me with the guests of honor, Hannah & Amy.

Some of the many friends that joined in on the celebration.

I guess the blonds had to form their own club....

Hannah and Amy enjoyed many great gifts and had a good time with friends!

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!

Two Peas in a Pod Baby Shower

My neighbor and friend, Lisanne, is going to be having twin boys soon, so Katie and I threw a shower for her.  We went with a "two peas in a pod" theme and had a fun time planning the details.

The menu included: chocolate fondue (with apples, pears, pretzels, Nilla Wafers & grapes), edamame, spinach artichoke dip with rolls, veggies & dip, Hawaiian chocolates, cheese bread balls, meatballs and water with limes.  If you haven't noticed yet, the theme was anything green, white, or brown and ideally round.

Plus, Katie made these pea-in-the-pod cupcakes.  Aren't they darling?!

Double the fun was had by all.

Katie & I with Lisanne (center), soon-to-be-mom of twins.

A Party Fit for a Princess

Gabby's princess obsession came much earlier in life than I had imagined it would, considering she received no encouragement from us.  But, a princess party is what she wanted, so that is what she got!

Decorations included a long Rapunzel braid coming down from the second floor balcony and a sign above a mirror that said, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall...."

I am not crafty at all but I still thought I would try making some pom-pom decorations.  I think they turned out cute considering my inabilities.  They only took about 10 minutes each.

I didn't photograph most of the food on time, but the biggest hit was the pink macaroni and cheese.  We also had things like PB&J crown sandwiches and Snow White apple slices.  The great thing about a princess theme is that you can find just about anything princess these days.  So I covered the mini cupcakes (well, actually, they were mini poppy seed muffins to go with the gray & pink theme) with crown, glass slipper, apple, and pearl sprinkles. 

We even had a special guest visitor - Belle herself!

My friend, Amy, used to be a Disney Princess and offered to dress up and organize activities for the kids.  She was amazing!  The craziest part is that Gabby sees Amy all of the time and she still had no idea that it was her.  She just kept saying, "I can't believe that Belle came to my party!!"

With Belle, the kids all made crowns and were enthralled by her every move.

 We had a great turnout - fourteen 3-year-olds!  It was pretty chaotic, but everyone seemed to have a good time.

After the party, Gabby layered on an extra princess costume that she received as a gift and carried around her new Snow White doll everywhere.  I think it was a good day.

Thanks to those who provided inspiration and assistance!

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.