Lilly's 2nd birthday!

The party spread

It was Lilly's 2nd birthday.  And because she's pretty special, we had to throw a pretty special party for her.  I based the theme off of Alice in Wonderland (the newest movie version).  So it was a whimsical, shabby chic, little tea party.

Of course, like the year before, we had Joreen from Bon Vinos make her two cakes.  Yes, she got two of 'em.  One just for her (gluten-free, dairy free, and egg free), and the bigger one for everyone else.  Seriously too cute for words...so cute, in fact, we will over look the fact that her name is spelled wrong.  Ah well.  Nobody even noticed.  I got the ideas for these cakes from Pinterest, of course.  Here are the links:  ruffle cake and painted flower cake

Here's another shot of the spread.  Lots of goodies for everyone to eat--even "make your own mini fruit pizzas" (Thank you, again, Pinterest)

These three beauties were tough to make.  It was almost a pinterest bomb...but thankfully, my husband saved the day and helped me out with his wire bending skills.  I'm really glad we had these though, cuz they sure did make a statement.  Here's the link to the pin if you want to see the inspiration: Giant Paper flowers .  

Party-goers got to make their own clip on mad hatter hats.  We got some pretty interesting designs.  

Here's the very first hat I tried.  Turned out pretty dang cute, if I must say so myself.  Here's how I got the idea: mad hatter hat cake topper and this link too: Divine hat designs .  Michelle and I had a ball making these.  We made these about a week before the party so they could be dry enough to put jewels and ribbon on.  This was where the party goers got creative.  They just chose a hat, then embellished the crap out of it.  And here's how I created them:

1. I bought like 20 of these oval boxes from Hobby Lobby.  Only 99 cents each! 

2. Then I cut out circles just slightly larger than the oval box using your basic cardstock paper.

3. Mod podged some cute material all over the box part.  I did about 3 coats or so...so it would be nice and hard.

4. I wanted the "band" part of the hat a different color.  So I mod podged this with a different, complimentary color of fabric.

5. Then I just glued and mod podged the box and lid together.  Except I turned the lid over so it didn't fit together like a box should.  This added a little bit of extra height to the hat.  I wanted this to be as tall as I could get it.  Every centimeter counts!!!!

6. Remember that circle I cut out from cardstock?  Well, I took that circle and then added four circle pieces of material and grouped them together like this.  You can't see the cardstock circle, cuz it's hidden behind the four material circles.  Kapeesh?

7. After those 4 material circles were firmly attached to the cardstock circle, I simply attached it to the hat.

8. Once it dried a little, I turned the hat upside down and mod podged more material circles to the underside.

9. Almost done...I just shaped the sides of the hat so they looked turned up and kind of curly.  I just played around with this and let it finish drying upside down for a day or so.

And here's Janie wearing the first, test hat.  I just threw on some tulle, and glued some buttons on, and a 10/6 sign and called it good.  I just used one of those alligator clips and hot glued it to the bottom of the hat.  These hats are a little heavy, but they stay on okay if you're wearing a ponytail.  And you can make one of these for about $1.50.  Not bad, eh?

Here's Aline and Lia in the ultra creative process with their mad hatter hats.  I think they're messing with the glue gun.

Yep.  Here we are after the party died down a bit. I never do my hair or make-up on a party day, cuz I am always running around frantic getting last minute stuff done.  So I don't even know why I let someone take a picture of me.  But My mom came all the way out from Utah bringing all the mushroom wall decals you see in the back.  It was fun to have her there.  Except....what are you looking at, mom?  I think she was as pooped as I was at that point.  We were up really late the night before putting all the decals on the walls.  Yeah, fun stuff.  All this for a two hour event.

BUT.... the most important thing was that this girl was happy.  And she was.  She loved having all the attention and everyone celebrating here special day.  Then she konked out right before it was time to open presents.  Oh well....

Lego mania

Tanner is 4.  I can’t believe I have such a big boy.  Time is flying by way too quickly.  And for his birthday he wanted everything LEGO.  He especially is obsessed with the little LEGO figurines.  He can’t get his hands on enough of those.  So...of course I had to go ALL out.  After all, he is my oldest and we are now in our brand new house which is like a blank canvas.  And boy did I go all out for this one.  Yes, I have an addiction to party planning.  I can’t help myself.

Above:  Front of the invitation.  I spent hours taking photos of each lego guy and then editing them in photoshop.  But hey, all for the sake of a good party, right?

Below: the inside page of the invitation.

Below: the last page of the invite.  Had to blurr out the info...cuz ya never know what crazies are out there.

Michelle gave me this idea...one day she said, “there’s got to be a way to decorate your giant fireplace like it’s a bunch of stacked up LEGO blocks.”  This is what I came up with.  Thanks to dollar store plastic table cloths and painter’s tape.  Also, his name is formed out of giant MEGA blocks.  

Of course, the entryway had to be LEGO themed as well.  My mom (through her printing business: “More than vinyl”) printed up the LEGO figurines from the invitation and then my husband stuck them on painted cardboard and cut out their faces so that the kids could take pictures AS LEGO people.  There were at least 6 of these scattered throughout the house.

Here’s another LEGO guy.  Then if you notice, all my benches and window sills are wrapped in green bubble wrap to give the illusion of green LEGO bases.

Here’s Ben posing as the above LEGO guy!

Speaking of that particular LEGO guy.  For some reason he’s Tanner’s very favorite guy.  So my mom screen printed him on a T-shirt for Tanner so he could be that LEGO guy all day long.  I though this was a cute idea.  Check out her website if you want to see more creative ideas for other parties that we’ve done. 

y mom can also print removable wall vinyl with any photograph sent to her.  I sent her a few of these LEGO guys photgraphs and she sent them back in giant sticker form.  And I put them up on the walls throughout the house.  Sooooo life-like, don’t you think? And they peel right off without leaving a trace of residue. Here’s her website again:  www.morethanvinyl.com

As the party goers arrived.  They were encouraged to “Guess how many LEGO blocks” there were in the clear jar.  I put 104 Duplo blocks in there.  But the common guess was 60.  Guess those Duplo blocks are deceiving.

Then the kids made their way to the kitchen where they made their own pizzas.  My intent was that the pizza dough would be formed into rectangles and they would put tiny round pepperonis or olives or ham on them.  So that it looked like a pizza LEGO block.  But yeah....this is how they all turned out.  But it was yummy nonetheless.  Thanks to Nana Katie’s famous homemade pizza recipe.  Tasty Tasty!

While the pizza’s were cooking, we made our way to the LEGO play room.  We played a few games like:  See who can build the tallest LEGO tower in 1 minute, or the coolest mansion in 5 minutes.  It was fun to see the kids work together as groups.  They were so competitive.

After we ate.  It was cake time!  So we made our way to the dining room.  Yes, that is a Duplo LEGO train circling the cake.

Don’t look too closely at the cake.  It’s not one of my finest jobs.  I frosted it that morning in a hurry, so it didn’t turn out how I had it envisioned in my mind.  Oh well...next time use fondant.

MIchelle made the chocolate LEGO figurines out of some moulds I bought online.  I also had some regular LEGO block moulds as well.  But we didn’t get around to doing anything with those.  And yes, those are Little Debbie snacks and frosted Suzi Q cakes.  I try to cut corners where I can...I’m not the best baker in the world, that’s for sure.

Next, Tanner got to open his presents wearing his LEGO crown that his pre school teacher made for him.  What a stud.

And lastly, each child got to take home a LEGO head (painted baby food jar) filled with LEGO candy and their very own mystery LEGO figurine.  Here’s Luke modeling his party favor for us.  I got the idea off of Pinterest. Here's the link to the pin

Daisy and Papa chillin'

Tanner had a fun day.  And it was kind of cool to have our house look like LEGO land for a weekend.  And yes, I kept the decor up all weekend long.  No reason to clean up too quickly after spending a week decorating, right?...and also, I was pretty exhausted too.  But in a good way and so very happy to see my little boy so excited and so grown up at his party.  Ahhhh...they grow up too fast.

Twilight party

The Twilight party was a success.  We had 126 complete strangers pre-order tickets to the dinner/movie premier.  They had dinner, participated in winning prizes, and went to their own private midnight showing of Twilight.  It was a lot of fun organizing...and a lot of work.  Natalie and I were exhausted after this one.  And we really couldn’t get that many pictures before the party began because EVERYONE showed up like 45 minutes before the party began.  I’m not kidding!  They were in the building before we even showed up.  So we had to scramble to get the last minute details taken care of instead of focusing on getting good pics of the decor and stuff.  Oh well...

My first flyer that I ever designed.  We plastered these all over Sunnyside, Zillah, Toppenish, Grandview, and Prosser.  We were serious about having this party!

The twilight poster that someone bid $100 for in the silent auction

Joreen made this chocolate mould to look exactly like the logo that I designed on the T-shirt.  Above it is  "death by chocolate with Edward's shimmering sparkle" (I know we're cheezy)

Chef Roger, putting the final touches on the food—"Apples of Bella’s sweet flavor"

"Mountain Lion w/ blood red gravy"

Diggin' in

Volturi bloody "mocktails"  sans the red syrup (blood)

"Alice" (a.k.a. Reagran) telling fortunes.  She even got a haircut to look like Alice in the show.  Can you believe it?

Twi-hards lined up to get their fortunes told.

Our Edward look a like winner.

Our Bella look a like

The apple charms that we gave out

The shirts I designed.  No one looked as hot as this model does in the t-shirts.