Hello Hello! I have been having so much fun planning AG's third birthday party! It's only a couple weeks away now so I'm starting to get things ready. For her first birthday we did a pool party at my in-laws' house ON her birthday because it was on a Saturday and it was about 137 degrees outside at the end of August in Florida so a pool party was really the only option. Last year we were living in the cramper and her birthday fell on a Sunday. That particular year happened to also be a milestone anniversary for my in-laws (their anniversary is the day after her birthday) and they had rented a beach house that the whole family stayed at for the weekend. Insta-party! We invited a few friends and I baked a cake. It was a good (and super easy) time. This year I was thrilled when AG declared she wants to have a deck party at home with her friend "Sopia's" water slide and hot dogs and waffles. Our flood renovations have made our home perfect for parties and I am so excited to host her birthday here. I have tons of Pinterest inspired plans which you'll see unfolding over the next few weeks. Like most young kids, she loves Frozen so I'm running with that theme. Tonight I made the banner for her cake topper. I decided before I ever had her that I wanted to make my kids's birthday cakes every year. You won't see fancy decorated cakes here but I can promise they will be delicious and hopefully somewhat cute.
I'm planning to use some jute twine and cute purple striped straws to suspend this above her chocolate cake (my Mimi's recipe.) Hubby isn't convinced that this is a good idea but party planning isn't his job. He can stick with building things and taking care of the great outdoors and I will stick with cooking and cleaning in the air conditioning and playing cruise director/party planner thankyouverymuch.
I also got some labels made tonight for the party food. It never occurred to me that other people might want to use these types of things that I make until today so I'll start sharing these with you as I make them. If people are interested, I'll also create a tutorial so you can learn to make your own too. I don't have a Silhouette or Cricut and I don't know if I'll ever have one. I just use Microsoft Word and the free version of PicMonkey online. I'm really not that techie, as I proved at work today with my lack of knowledge of the selfie stick. My plan is to print these on cardstock and use rolled up tape to stick them on the serving dishes. It doesn't get much easier than that. I'm uploading this photo but I have it saved as a PDF that I'm going to print from. I'll figure out how to share printables this week and share the blank labels in case anyone wants to download them for their own use.
How cute are those?! I am really happy with them and I love the names of the foods. Frozen hearts are white chocolate covered strawberries, Sven's antlers are mini pretzels, ice blocks are blue jello with whipped cream, melted ice is water (you're welcome for that free science lesson, the Biomedical Science degree is really paying off now), Olaf's noses are carrots with dip, and Elsa's cupcakes are going to be purple velvet cupcakes and I'll draw a little snowflake on top of them. I feel like a serious overachiever with this party but it really is so fun to plan and I know AG is going to LOVE it! Seeing her get all excited is totally worth any amount of effort this may take. Although I witnessed her give the same reaction that I'm expecting for the party when hubby simply gave her a Minnie Mouse balloon the other day. I guess she still wants a balloon for her birthday.
We went to her first big kid birthday party for a friend over the weekend. It was AG's first water park experience and she was in hog heaven. I'm not gonna lie, I was too. I love a water park. We splashed and played on slides. I even got to do the grownup slides which was so fun even though it made me realize how incredibly out of shape I really am. The stairs were a serious workout. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I was sore the next day. You'd think going to the gym would prevent that. Apparently I need to go more than once per week. Go figure.
