100 AKRE WOOD 2nd b'day party (out of order pics)

Eating crackers mom, no time to smile!

My little Birthday "Busty"

One angle of the room and the decor I made.

Grandpa helped the gift opening process move along so I could take pictures. Ri likes to rip scotch tape sized pieces off the wrappings and it takes FOREVER!! :)

Rosetta the Tinkerbell friend.
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"OHH! Abby! She got the REAL tinkerbell dolls! The BARBIE kind!!" Elena was incredibly impressed.

"Yumpy Dee" takes his last breath before being carved into. :( Sorry Lumpy!

I put candles in both cakes and Cailen got to help blow them out, since Riley wouldn't even try!!

Come on! Help me out here people!!

The blog wouldn't let me arrange my photos the way I wanted so I hope you enjoy the out of order montage above and below!

I don't think I've ever spent so much time on the preparation of ANYTHING! Well at least not in one week. I guess this is why people hire wedding and party planners. I had so many ideas in my head on what I wanted to do for my 100 Akre Wood Party and I could find next to NOTHING in the store to help me out with that. So, I had to regroup and revise my decorating plan. So I bought construction paper and made my own decorations. I crocheted 11 headbands which took about 45 minutes EACH!! I did a fondant homemade cake. Cleaned the house, did favors, made Super Sleuth badges...I will admit, I had a lot of fun working with crayons, markers, glue and construction paper, but at times it was a tad overwhelming. The girls had fun helping with the decorations wherever they could as well. Good times.

We had a record number of attendees for this party (so it was tight) and my dining room was hot since it was about 84 degrees outside. But somehow we managed to have a great time! :)

I suddenly felt like a daycare teacher when it was time for activities. I wasn't sure how it would all pan out, but the kids did a great job. I think this is the first party where I planned games...

Ri was gearing up to do her pin the tail on Eeyore. She went last, so she had plenty of time to work on her strategy. By the end we had a nice pile of tails in the right spot.

I found toy magnifying glasses at the dollar store so we had to do another mystery. The had to figure out what was in the paper lunch bags by feeling it, and if they couldn't figure it out there was an itty bitty drawn clue on the bag that they could use their magnifying glass to see. They seemed to like that. :)

Eeyore smile! Now you have numerous tails!!

Kids with their headbands waiting to play an unblindfolded version of Pin the Tail on Eeyore. The super sleuths were "solving" the problem of Eeyore's missing tail....The answer to the problem was definitely to PEEK! ;) It was cute. *Eeyore, you are making me look pregnant!*

I had extra batter and extra purple from the writing so I frosted the 6 inch cake. I had bought the characters months ago and did want to use them without cluttering the Lumpy cake.

The colors came out weird, but I'm proud of my creation none the less! Riley was very upset when I let someone eat one of Lumpy's legs...."Don't eat Yumpy's Yegs!!"

Hundred Akre Wood Thataway^ Happy 2nd Riley!

Lumpy "Yumpy Dee" was the main reason for the theme. So, he was the backdrop of where Ri would sit for cake and presents.

Super Sleuth Badges for the kids.

Cailen's first drawing of Pooh ever. Man is it cute!

The headband's Tigger, Pooh, one pigglet for Cailen and Riley was wearing her Buster band.

Some of my paper decor creations.

Ri LOVED her "Busty" headband. *cracker in her mouth sorry!* The girls wore blue as everyone was asked to, so they would have "Super Sleuth" uniforms on.)

I'm not sure if I could love these girls any more than I do. It is such an honor to be there mom and I hope I am succeeding at making some nice memories for them. Cailen still tells me about her Princess party and asks me to make her another princess cake. That makes me feel good that she remembers it and A LOT of details. Riley mentioned her Lumpy cake while we were shopping the other day. EVEN THOUGH, at the party by the time she saw the cake she was aching for a nap and didn't react to it a whole lot. Riley has blessed me so much for the past two years. I can't thank God enough for the gift of her and the ability to celebrate her day with so many friends and family who love her. Thanks to all who came and for the wonderful presents!

Happy Third Birthday to my Little....Big girl.

This past year Cailen has grown leaps and bounds both as a person, in her intellect, socialization, maturity and in her stature. She is just such a wonderful vibrant little singer, songwriter, dancer, story teller, sister, friend and daughter.
She melts me, as she always has. One of the things she has grown to love in the past year, besides Caillou, Curious George and Clifford, is PRINCESSES. Any Barbie is "Princess Barbie" to her and of course there's the marketed on EVERYTHING Disney Princesses. So, I guess naturally she would begin to love all things princess as all things for her age group seem to have princesses on them! Anyway, since her first two b'day parties were kind of gender neutral, I figured it would be nice to have a girly party instead of say celebrating with Caillou, though she would have loved that as well.

Cailen got a tutu, head-dress and wand as an early in the party gift (from Melody) that she wore the whole time. I love it! It made for great pictures.


Being on a tight budget I tried to think how I could make the party more "dazzling" and princess-like and somehow, one day I had the thought to turn the toy room into a mini "ball room" at least in it's decor. So for free, using icicle and blinking xmas lights, hand- me-down lace and frilly blue curtains, faux ivy and flowers I transformed the toy room into a little girl's...dream toy room?...I don't know. All I know is that after the lights were hung at 4 ft high across the whole expanse of the room, Cailen started quietly singing to herself "Thank you mommy and daddy, I loooove it....I love my toy room, it's really great....It's fu--uuuu--uuuu---uuuu-uuuN!" It was heart warming to see in her natural flow of song writing that the decor meant a lot to her. The doorway that was adorned with the blue swag curtain had the blinking lights behind it, you can't tell much in the picture, but to me it felt like glow bugs beckoned you into the room). Sitting on the floor in the mini room, I'll admit, it did have much more appeal to hang out in there. It had a more enchanted feeling if you will. Here are Adriana, Elena and Cailen living it up in the room. :)

So anyway, I made the cake,

I decorated for 3 days, it snowed all day the day of the party (which had me freaking out that I would have to cancel the party). Thank you to all who braved the storm!! There was a Christmas parade in town going past my house during the party which the girls watched through the window-good times! The little princess guests all came in a princess dress of their own, there were crowns and bead necklaces to share. Everyone seemed really happy to be there and everyone looked SO pretty! Cailen was thrilled to have all her princess friends there!

I'm so happy that Cailen loved her party. She STILL talks about it and I know someday she will love the pictures...Or at least I HOPE she does. I love the pictures, and of course as usual, I loved having an excuse to use some creativity. Happy Birthday to my Cailen. I love you! You are an amazing little girl!

Grandma's 85th Birthday!!

Here she is! The birthday girl. 85 years young. She is a wonderful, loving great-grandmother of....eleven great-grandchildren? She was told that we were all going to my Aunt Pat's house but really we threw her a bit of a surprise party at the place where she lives. She's pretty keen on details though, she started thinking something was up when her sister and kids hadn't mailed b'day cards to her yet....She said she has had a hunch, on and off, for a couple of weeks. Nothing gets by her!! :)

We gave her a lei of flowers to make her look more festive. She wondered if that meant she was supposed to do the hula dance or not... She seems to be pretty popular because she had lots of friends show up to our party. There were plenty of nice gifts and cards. I think one of her favorites was a pair of Crocs! I have never seen someone so excited to get a pair of shoes! I guess they are comfortable...I have no clue, I've never tried a pair on.

We made up a scrapbook of our kids, using the digital software on ritzpix.com. I hope she likes it! She didn't have a chance to look at/read all the pages while we were there. (but it made my mom get a little emotional so I'm pretty sure it's good.)

My kids kept eye balling the cake all afternoon....It seems Riley already recognizes my decorated cakes as FOOD! I had trouble keeping her away from the cake. She kept fighting me to get at it saying "NUMMY!!" So, we put the lid on it.

Originally I was just going to use my macro function lene to take a picture of her hands holding the card, but then her cute smiling face entered the frame. I had to take this picture below. I thought it looked cool in black and white.

Here I am with my awesome Grandma. The writing on the cake started to lose it's color so I wasn't too worried about keeping the color for the picture. It was nice to see her and to be part of her special day, surrounded by friends and family who love her. Happy Birthday Grandma!

Happy Birthday Riley

My baby is ONE Year old!!! Take a second and compare this picture with the one of me holding her on the left as a newborn. My how she's grown!! And when I brought her home from the hospital I swore she'd never seem small to me in that picture. :(

I can't believe it's here already, but to sweeten the sadness of my baby being a whoppin' 1 year old we HAD to have a great party! I put my energy into the theme, using my own existing artwork and I made a fondant cake to go along with it. I can't take credit for the oreo sunflower cupcakes with red m&m blady bugs...That idea came from Julie McOrmond's Upper Crust Bakery. http://www.uppercrustcakes.com It was a great day for me, less stressful than I anticipated. People who have been coming to Cailen's parties are now becoming "party acquaintances" so socially it seemed to flow very nicely this time around. I always spend my mental time worrying about the guests that don't know anyone but I'm usually too overwhelmed to do anything constructive about it. I really had a very happy day celebrating my little Chumby. My theme was "A Ladybug's Picnic." I found wings at the dollar store and Melody helped me make the antennas. Melody also helped watch Cailen while Riley slept so I could make that cake by the light of day instead of at 3am. Thanks Melody!!!

I always know when I've done something good when people like Keila walk into the party and say kind words like "I officially hate you." :D Hahaha...sigh...It seems as though you say that at every party Keila...I love you too! :P

I also managed to do favors/an art project. Cailen was so proud of hers she took it to the fridge and hung it up by herself. I thought that was cute. I loved the fact that most of the kids were willing to dress up :) It was also very cool because people bought great gifts that went with the theme of the party. We are all enjoying the new toys, books/puzzles and clothes. Everything was awesome. Including my friends and family. :) My mom bought Riley a little tykes car and Cailen a tricycle! Yeeha! Thanks Mom. :) I think Cailen felt like it was her party too, even though she is well aware of what is Riley's. Cailen had a blast and for me, that was very rewarding. Someday, Riley will know too how cool my parties are ;)


Random side note: I thought this was a great idea as I'm always chucking broken crayons. :) Check out the rest of this blog she's got great ideas :)

http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-recycle-old-crayons-into-new.html

My Baby is 2!

Last year's theme was Elmo and I had everyone wear red shirts. This year I tried to do an underwater/Finding Nemo theme so I asked everyone to wear blue. I figured I would show my baby then and now as well as show case my "Cailen cakes" while I'm at it. It was a full house which always feels slightly awkward for me because I'm always so overwhelmed and scatter brained that I'm TERRIBLE at introducing the people who don't know the other people at the party...*sorry*

For decorations I had tried to turn my ceiling into the top of the ocean with blue and white streamers and blue plastic swag-ish things strewn about (shredded plastic table cloths). Then I hung printed card stock fish as well as balloons that I turned into fish from the ceiling.

I found two Nemo toys at the dollar store (Dori and the shark). Ironically I couldn't find a Nemo toy for the cake. My mom is always thinking and she found a Nemo Pez dispenser that she brought and we just took Nemo from his Pez-pedistal and boom perfectly completed cake! I will admit I hate writing with gel and the gel I had was runny. I didn't want to write in cursive so that Cailen could recognize the letters on the cake. So, my one big disappointment of my cake was the hand writing. Oh well. For doing the cake betwen 1-2 am I guess it came out alright. :) Anyway, I just can't believe Cailen is two already. It seems like yesterday I was telling the blog world how much morning sickness I had with her and how much weight I was gaining month to month! I can't imagine life without her. She has truly changed our lives and our family and we are so blessed to be her parents.

Before closing I wanted to say, the sweetest moment at the party came when she was opening presents. I bought her the Little People set with a curly red head doll/picnic set. The child on the back of the box playing with the toy had similar hair to Cailen's. As Cailen opened the present Adriana pointed to the child on the box and exclaimed "Look it's YOU!" :) *awesome*

Thanks to all who came. For those who couldn't come, you were missed. :)

Riley Johanna is born! Finally....