Week in Review - Miss M's Birthday

I might have mentioned that I do not love character parties.  I do not like them at all, but I gave in to my daughter’s request to have a Dora party.   Mostly because I was lacking in inspiration and I am just plain tired.  She loved it.  My cousin made the cake because she is great at it and I put up a few decorations.  It wasn’t a huge party but she was thrilled with it.

This is her opening her cards from Grandma and Great-Grandma who live in Missouri.

Oh, and we hot rolled her hair too!

You know we do not throw a party unless there is a piñata involved so . . .

I loved shopping this year for her because we bought her a doll house and I have very fond memories of playing with my dollhouse that my dad built me (that my grandpa later threw away when he was cleaning out the attic).  It was also called the Loving Family Doll House.  And let me tell you, this girl we have loves everything family.  She thinks every single thing should have a mom and a dad (I do too).  She found a little sad corn cob in my Dad and stepmom’s yard and she asked where his mom and dad were.  She was so sad that it was all alone.  Every.single.day she thanks the Lord for her family and she even tells me she is thankful for her family so she won’t have to be all alone.  It is pretty precious.

 We love our sweet girl!

And just in case that wasn't enough pictures:

Carnival Birthday Party

Well, I haven’t blogged in a few days and I know that is not like me but I have a good reason.  We had the boys birthday party this weekend.  I had a party together since they both have June birthdays.  We did a Carnival theme. 
For the food I wanted to do cupcakes.  I used this colorburst cupcakes recipe which make incredibly moist cupcakes (sorry about the fuzzy picture).


And then I wanted to do these snow cone cupcakes but I didn’t quite pull it off, but I did do these Popcorn Cupcakes and they turned out pretty cute.


I also made “lollipop” cookies and they were pretty fun to make and looked pretty cute on the candy table.  I put the candy on the table and then we had popcorn bags that everyone could use to make their own treat bags with the candy.


I bought some games from Oriental Trading company and then used my own ideas too.  I set them up as Carnival “booths”.

This was a “kissing booth” with a twist.  It was an idea I got from here.

Here is the “ring toss” game.

Our duck matching game.  We used our water table as the duckie pool.

Then we had the bean bag toss. 

Then I had to do potato sack races.  I went to the Goodwill and bought several pillow cases to use as “potato sacks”.

The food I went with was pretty simple so guests could serves themselves.  We had pulled pork and sloppy joes in the slow cooker.  My stepmom made her awesome potato salad.  I made baked beans and fruit salad and then we had chips and carrots.



I used this Red and White Striped paper to make my own signs and to make the cupcake wrap arounds.
If you are interested in doing a party you can get several more ideas from here and here.

We had a lot of fun. 

Action Shots VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We also always have to have a pinata.  It is not a party at our house unless someone is trying to knock the candy out of an object on a string with a metal bat.  Usually we have to beat the thing to get the candy.  This year the head immediately came off.  So we were beating a headless horse.  It was kinda weird but fun.


And since it was about 97 degrees, we had to try out the slip n slide my sister got for Iman’s birthday.

Happy Birthday to my boys.
We love you so much!

Our Little Ladybug

My little girl turned 3 this past week and I really had been wanting to do a ladybug themed party so that is what we did.  She loved it, but she is very easy to please.  The idea came from here and I bought a PDF file from her Etsy shop.  I  made this party pretty low key and didn't invite a lot of people like I did for the boys' birthday.  My daughter just requested two friends from church and my immediate family so that is what we did.

I served a taco bar (thanks for the inspiration Connie) and then we had cake (made by my cousin - visit her website) and ice cream.  

Of course I have talked about our love of pinatas and it just would not be a birthday party without one. 

And my husband finally tore it open because whoever makes those pinatas makes them so strong that we have to beat it to get the thing open.

Then we went inside for some cake!

And we opened some presents.

And we ate some blue ring pops.

And later we tried on our new outfit and got into mommy's make up.

It was a good time with our only girl.  She is sweet and sassy and likes to talk a lot (I don't know where she gets it) but she is precious and a joy and we love her dearly.