Vintage Circus 1st Birthday Party

Can you believe my baby girl is 1 year old already?




These parties get harder and harder with 2 kids and working full time, but we pulled it off!  I could have done so much more, but I just had to draw the line somewhere for my own sanity.  The decorations came out super cute, the food was good, and everyone had a great time!

DIY party hats with a special one for the birthday girl

Let's just go right to her wearing it because it's too darn cute...she was so upset that she had to wait for cake!

The front hallway with her 12 month calendar photos, party blowers, and circus animal crackers as the balloon weights

Close-up of the party blowers


Front door sign

Back door leading to the backyard...
A couple hours before the party started, we ended up moving a lot of things outside because the weather was beautiful!


Happy Birthday banner in the kitchen

Party hats for the kids

Banner of monthly photos with her baby doll

Cards for the guests to write memories and advice for Caylee.  Everyone wrote the cutest messages for her! (I did this for Connor too, and I love that we can save them for him to look at when he gets older)


The snacks were also an important part of the vintage circus theme.  Everyone pigged out on circus peanuts, gummy bears, candy buttons, popcorn...

Cotton candy, Cracker Jack, animal crackers, etc...

We also had soft pretzels with cheese dip, hot dogs & turkey dogs, and some everyday food too.  Most of it got eaten before I got to take photos!

Caylee absolutely loved her first taste of cake and ended up with half in her tummy & half in her hair!

Connor was a great big brother and helped her blow out her birthday candle!

 It's so hard to believe it's been a year since she was born.  She's gone from a little newborn to a big girl in such a short time! But thank goodness this party is over now...I'm ready to enjoy the summer!

DIY Children's Art Drawing on a Pillow

Connor is turning into quite the little artist lately (swoon!) and I guess my love of art is rubbing off on him.  He started drawing these little faces

Connor is turning into quite the little artist lately (swoon!) and I guess my love of art is rubbing off on him.  He started drawing these little faces at daycare during art class and I'm obsessed with them.  I thought it might be fun to turn one of them into a little pillow for him.  We play "art class" at home, so I took a piece of fabric and ironed some pellon on the back of it to stiffen it up a little.  He used a fabric marker to draw the face on the fabric.

My little lefty hard at work!

I put fleece on the back side to make it a little softer for his bed and sewed the pillow closed.  He absolutely loves it!  He sleeps with it every night!  Best little project ever :)

DIY Kids Despicable Me Minion Valentine's Day Crayon Wrap Gifts

Connor is currently obsessed with Despicable Me 2 and watches it at least a few times a week.  He calls it something like "Nin-yinks" instead of Minions, but it's cute!  For Valentine's Day, his daycare doesn't allow food to be brought in, so I thought it might be fun to do crayon Valentine's with Minions since they're his current favorite thing.

There's a lot of Minion printables floating around online right now, but none of them were quite right for what I needed.  I ended up resizing them to make them fit the crayon boxes I used, and then I added a little red note on the back.


I had to hide them from Connor until Valentine's Day so he doesn't destroy them, but I can't wait to see his face when he sees them!

Connor's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday Party

My big guy just turned 3!


Because of the new baby and such a crazy summer, we did a low-key birthday this year.  Nothing too big and not as many decoration and DIY as normal, but still just as much love and fun!  Connor was into Mickey for the majority of the year, so I decided that was the best bet for his 3rd birthday theme.


The party started at 4:00 after nap time, so we did some easy snacks before picking up pizza for dinner.  The hit of the party were the homemade Mickey & Minnie sugar cookies that we made!  I love baking, but I haven't had the best luck with sugar cookies.  After a lot of research, I found the perfect recipe here, and they came out perfectly!

 

 Mickey watermelon with blueberries

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse serving bowls and Mickey ears for the kids

 

Can't beat balloons for $1 and the best entertainment for toddlers!


Miss Caylee in her party dress :)

Connor with his Mickey birthday cake

He insisted on getting a piece with Mickey's foot on it and then only ate the frosting. Silly guy!

Happy Birthday, Connor!

Toddler Straw Valentines

Nothing like a last minute craft project!  I'm not a procrastinator at all, but when daycare told us on Monday night that Connor's class was having a Valentine's Day party, I only had a few days to prepare.  Connor had tubes surgery on Tuesday morning (second set) so we had some extra time in the afternoon to do some crafting.  

I decided on a simple Valentine's note with a non-food gift for each child since daycare is nut-free and it's hard to find snacks that all the kids can eat.  I printed out sheets of Valentines and then had Connor color on them with pink, red and purple crayons.

 Each circle is 2.5 inches and I used a hole punch to make hole on the top and bottom of each one.  It looked really complicated to get the paper on the straw without ripping it, but it ended up being pretty easy to do.

I ended up grabbing a little box of sticker for each child, so I just tied those on with a ribbon.


Happy Valentine's Day!

Toddler Spider Handprint Halloween Craft

It's been too long since we've done a fun craft with Connor.  As I started getting ready for Halloween, I came across this idea for spider handprints and I thought he'd really like it.  He's really into spiders right now, so this fit perfect with the holiday!

As usual, we do a lot of our painting in the bathtub so we can clean up easily.  Daddy helped paint his hands black with acrylic craft paint.

I held his hands down for each handprint.

A couple days later, once the paint was dry, Connor used glue to add some googly eyes to the spider.

I added some cute "Happy Halloween" messages, a date, and his name to each one.

I love how each one is a little different and has its own character!