Princess is 3!

Dear Princess,

Happy 3rd birthday, my sweet, smart, and beautiful daughter! You have grown so much this past year and it's been so fun watching you learn and grow. You bring lots of sunshine to our lives.

This year, you wanted a Minnie Mouse Birthday party. You LOVE Mickey and Minnie Mouse! We had it at our house and it was probably the last birthday party we'll have at this house before we move to the farm house. You had a blast! You had 4 friends come and a few of their siblings. Your cousin, A, ended up in the hospital due to RSV so she wasn't able to make it. We played games, ate some fun Disney themed food, and had a yummy cake and cupcakes. I surprised you with a giant Minnie Mouse walking balloon, we decorated your bedroom, and took you to Chuck E Cheese on your birthday for lunch.

Fun Facts:

Favorite color: pink
Best friend: Abigail
Favorite food: pizza
Favorite veggie: sandwich (salad with ranch)
What you want to be when you grow up: a doctor
Favorite song: Jesus is Lord and Create in Me is a close 2nd
Favorite book: lots of books
Favorite place to go: Disney World and Chuck E Cheese
Favorite toy: Mouse dolls and toys, especially Mickey and Minnie Mouse

Princess, you are one of the most kind and thoughtful people I know. I love how you are willing to share, comfort, and love others. You are very bright for you age and speak clearly. You love to help those in need and are very precious to us. We hope your love for God, Jesus, and others always continues to grow. We love you very much!

Love,
Mom

Playing the Mickey and Minnie Chase game

Pin the Bow on You! 

She loved the custom game I made her

Minnie Mouse cake and pink cupcakes

Disney themed food: Pluto's Popcorn; Princess Pretzels; Goofy's Grapes;
Daisy's Vegetable Garden; Minnie's Bows; and Donald's Cheese and Quackers

Pin the Bow on her game

party favors, kids grabbed a Minnie or Mickey ears when they arrived

Kind of like musical chairs but Musical Bows, dance around from
bow to bow. When music stops, stop on a bow and pick a prize in order
of your number. We had monkey dolls in pink, red, and white to choose from.

Enjoying cake with her friends

Some siblings

Party friends!

Present time!

Party favors

Feeding her new baby doll

Some of the balloons

Upcycle Kids Clothing and make a Fishing Game

I made a fishing game for my daughter's Curious George birthday party. These took about 5 minutes to make per fish. Rather than run to the store to buy some fabric, I decided to re-purpose some clothes that no longer fit my kids. I cut out some fish shapes from their clothes, put the outside of the fabric facing each other. Sewed all but the tail. Turned the fish right side out, filled the fish with rice and then sewed up the tail. Then I hand sewed a washer to the mouth. It was such a fun and practically free game for the party! I put the fish on a blue pillow case so they could pretend they were fishing in water. I already had the fishing pool from a toy exchange I did last year. 

Curious George Birthday Party!

Princess just turned two and loves Curious George! We have a lot of his books and about a month ago I started letting her watch a show occasionally while I needed to tend to her baby brother. She loves both the books and the show and was excited to have a Curious George birthday party! The party was so much fun and all of the kids had a blast!

We had her party at home and kept it on the smaller size. Being January, we wanted to keep the kids inside and due to her age, having less kids is usually better. There were eleven kids there, that included two babies. I bought her a big Curious George cake and asked my baker to use pink icing instead of red. The colors for her party were pink and yellow. I made a few balloon center pieces for the big tables and put up a few birthday decorations. I also made a few games. I made a fishing game. I made the fish out of clothes that the kids had outgrew and I hadn't donated yet. They loved seeing their old clothes re-purposed! I also made a banana bean bag toss game where I drew a big George face and cut out a mouth. Then I sewed some bananas out of soft yellow fabric that I stuffed with rice. The kids loved tossing the bananas in George's mouth. I also made a pin the tail on Hundley game. I drew a tailless Hundley and then made about a dozen tails for the kids to try and put on him. For the little kids, I just let them walk over and put the tail on him. The older kids, we blind-folded them. They loved it! The winner won a sock monkey.  

To make the party extra special we bought a few costumes to surprise the birthday girl with a few guests. My husband dressed up as the Man with the Yellow Hat. I dressed up like Professor Wiseman (from the TV show, in the books, the professor is a man). We dressed up our baby as Curious George. Princess LOVED it!! She was so surprised. My sister was reading to her when we went to get dressed. All of the kids thought it was neat. Our older son, who loves Curious George too, thought it was a great idea! We surprised him as well. My husband made a great Man with the Yellow Hat! And we now have our costumes for next Halloween. 

Here are some pictures from the party. The games were cheap and easy to make. I also bought Curious George's Birthday Surprise book and had everyone who came to the party sign it. We splurged on the cake and costumes. I served strawberries, blueberries, fruit dip, chips, guacamole, and a variety of drinks. I bought a vegetable tray but completely forgot to pull it out of the fridge until the party was over. The party favors were bubbles, a bracelet, and some balloons. We made our daughter's day and that was the most important thing. 

Cutest George cake ever!!

I love the little George train toy they added

Some fruit, fruit dip, chips, and guacamole

A few decorations

Fishing game

Princess, Man in the Yellow Hat, Curious George, and Professor Wiseman

Such a great costume!

Family picture in costume - Baby George was a little upset

Cake time! I moved our small table to the middle of the kitchen dining area

Sweet friends

We let her open her presents at the party

Her friends wanted to watch her open their gifts

Feed George Banana Toss Game

Pin the Tail on Hundley

It's hard to get a group picture but I was determined to get one.
I have missed getting group pictures at the other parties.

Our boy's 5th birthday party

This past weekend we celebrated Blue Rock's 5th birthday! He wanted to have the same party as last year, at our house, mainly in our backyard with our water slide and all his friends. He also wanted the same cake as last year. We ordered one from Costco. I'm glad he liked his party so much last year he wanted the same one again. This year we added a few new things. We added a climbing dome, which was his big present from us this year, a sandbox, a balance beam, and a slip-n-slide. There was also a little baby pool that we set up a water balloon station in.  This was kind of a last minute thing and I think every kid made their own water balloons and liked that station. Blue Rock said making water balloons was one of his favorite things to do at the party. We had a few things planned for the kids to do during the party. However, the kids were having so much fun doing different things that we ended up just letting the kids play and not doing any structured activities. The kids had a great time. We had quite a crowd, 46 people came, 23 adults, and 23 kids, this was after 16 people were unable to come the morning of. We served lunch, cake, and ice cream. I love having home birthday parties. They are so much fun!

This is how we set up our son's 5th birthday backyard party.

My husband and then later my dad grilled the hot dogs. I think they cooked around 60. We were planning for 75 people so we have quite a lot left over! We kept the food inside for people to make their plates, less flies and bugs. There were hot dogs, chips, cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, grapes, carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes. I had a drink station outside with two pitchers of tea and a large ice chest with lots of bottle water and boxed juices. Also there were bags of ice for the tea. We had 4 tables set up outside and lots of chairs around the tables and around the backyard.

When people arrived, we had them fix their plates inside and then head outside (or stay inside) to eat. We had the kitchen table and dining room table available if anyone wanted to eat inside. Some ate in the kitchen but most people ate outside.

Then the kids played and played. We were planning on having a relay and a water balloon toss. I had also hoped to make a water balloon pinata but ended up running out of time. The kids had so much fun making water balloons and some would throw them at each other off and on throughout the party that we didn't do an official water balloon toss.

We had a big water slide. Our backyard isn't big enough to rent one of those huge ones. Thankfully we love our slide, it is 10 ft tall and perfect for kids from about 3 and up and fits well in our backyard.  This was our son's birthday present last year. We have a big trampoline, a sandbox, balance beam, slip-n-slide, and a climbing dome. 

Around 1pm we brought out the cake, sang "Happy Birthday" and served the cake with little cups of Blue Bell Ice Cream.

We decided to let him open his gifts after everyone left. Although he did get to open a few while some of the kids were there because they wanted to watch him open their gift. It was sweet. He loved everything he got. We kept the party favors outside this year so I wouldn't forget to hand them out. Each bag had two plane gliders, a big balloon on a rubber band, a birthday party blow thing, and a stamp.

His birthday is in a few days so I'll write a 5-year update then. Here are lots of pictures from his party and you can see how things were set up. I LOVE this boy and all his sweet friends and their parents!!