Party Planning

Who would have thought that the start of Spring would be busier and filled with as much activity, if not more, than Christmas time? Not me. Jilly was actually born on Easter Sunday but since the holiday moves around from year to year, her birthday hasn't been all that close until now. Most of what has had me running around like a chicken with her head cut off would have been solved if I would have just told her what we would do for her birthday this year. But no. I had to get her input and now I'm paying for it. Like Beanie Daddy says, she's TWO. She shouldn't be making decisions that cause me more work than necessary. If I want to do it myself, well, that's my problem. But Jilly is the kind of child that when she makes up her mind that she wants to do something, you'd better be dang sure that you do what you can do to make it happen because she won't let you forget. I suppose we got a preview of that with the circumstances of her birth. She came 3 weeks early with no warning. I had been to the doctor a few days earlier and had made no progress toward going into labor any time soon. I was actually hoping we could hold out until May. But no. She decided she was ready and such is the life we live today....

But I digress....

JillyBean's birthday is the Thursday after Easter this year. I had the idea of hosting a party at home with her friends the Saturday before and double it as an Easter egg hunt. I had thought of getting each guest their own basket filled with treats in addition to scattering eggs about for them to collect. I was even hoping that I could convince Daddy to dress up like the Easter Bunny, but knew it was a long shot. Instead, Jilly has had it in her head for nearly a year that she wants to have a Thomas the Tank Engine party. I thought and hoped that she would change her mind as time went by, but she didn't. So, we are having a Thomas party. By the way, I don't understand her obsession with Thomas. She's never watched the show.

My planning for this event began shortly after the holidays. I began looking for Thomas and general train invitations that I thought were a little girlie. Some were too baby or were more along a circus train theme or were too heavily in the primary color scheme for my taste. Then I found these and knew they would work. I almost had the woman who made them change the color to pink and green, but thought that the red and blue were a bit more authentic and kept close to the Thomas theme.
Next came trying to figure out how to keep nearly a dozen (didn't mean for it to grow this big) preschoolers entertained without destroying our house. I won a cake pan on Ebay that makes six mini train cakes. My idea is to have the cakes ready for the kids to decorate with candy. I haven't decided if I want to frost them ahead of time. That may be a game day decision. In addition, I am trying to make up a game along the lines of pin the tail on the donkey. A friend whose son had a Thomas party last year said there was a similar Thomas game where you have to get the No. 1 in place. That game no longer exists so I am going to wing it. I haven't decided if I want to make a roundhouse and have the kids try to get their engine into the house or try to line up the train cars on a track. I have finally found some train templates that I like online and will print one out for each child. I feel as if I need one more thing to do, but am not sure. We're still kicking around ideas, but hopefully it will be pretty outside and we can shoo them out for a while then have hot dogs, turkey burgers then cake.

I am really excited for the guest favors that I made with the assistance of a good friend who has unlimited craft ideas. Each child will receive a wooden train whistle and a personalized engineer's cap. We worked on these earlier this week and I'm really happy with them:
I bought Thomas fabric and we cut out the little circles to attach the brim of each hat.Then we personalized the hats with each child's name. It was super easy and, I think, rather unique.

Next I have turned my attention to decor. I had grand ideas of turning the downstairs area into a train station, but that's not going to work since I'm busy planning two other parties that fall within a week of this one (more on that later). So we're going to keep it fairly simple. I am going to order two dozen red and blue balloons. One dozen will be tied to the front porch to greet guests and the others will be used inside. I suspect that we can tie one on to each chair that will seat a guest. I also revamped the birthday banner that I made Jilly last year. I ordered Thomas scrapbook paper and cut out letters and strung them together with red ribbon:

I still need to trace and cut out letters for her name, but am happy with this so far.

The big stuff is pretty much done. I promised Jilly that I would make a train cake for her, but I am unsure if it is something that will be served at the big party or reserved for the family party on her actual birthday. I have never done much to decorate a cake than simply slap frosting across it. The cake pan that I bought has instructions as to how to pipe it and I have the right tools, so we'll see how it goes.

Daddy is responsible for downloading train songs that will be played and he has it in his head that he is going to make a station sign that will hang on our porch to welcome guests. We'll see how that goes. I have all the confidence that he can do it, just not sure when he'll get around to doing it.

We asked our guests to consider bringing a toy that will be donated to the Charlottesville Ronald McDonald House instead of a birthday gift for JillyBean. She will get more than enough from family, and we want to continue teaching her the importance of helping others. She will make a birthday donation of her own to the organization as well. I know that birthdays are supposed to be special times when the attention is focused on birthday girl or boy, but I think the party is enough to show her how loved she is and how happy we are to have her in our lives.

Now, please pray for sunny weather so 12 kids and a couple dozen adults aren't stuck in the house.

Happy Birthday JillyBean

My little baby is turning into a little lady....


Newborn

One Year

Two Years

PAR-TAY

JillyBean doesn't officially turn two until tomorrow, but she partied like a two-year-old Sunday afternoon. The celebration took place at The Little Gym and we invited several of her friends. It was a lot of fun. Jilly was so excited for her "party" but didn't quite realize that it started with activities in the Gym. In her mind, the party was supposed to take place in the room that had all of the balloons, pizza, and, of course, the cupcakes. She threw a little bit of a fit in the beginning of the celebration but relaxed and enjoyed herself toward the end. Still, she was anxious to get the party started.

The theme was monkeys. We sent out pink and brown invitations that had a monkey sporting a tutu and tiara. They were really cute and you'd think that it would have been easy to find pink and brown decor but it was a bit difficult. So, I had to dig deep down inside myself and become, hold on a sec, crafty. I like the idea of doing crafts but when it comes down to it, I would rather pay someone else to do it. I'll cook and bake all day long, but sitting down to do some sort of craft doesn't always turn out all that well.

The treat bags that we gave to all of Jilly's gifts were filled with a small stuffed Curious George, a set of Curious George stickers, a monkey jigsaw puzzle and Jilly's signature sweet - Jelly Belly jellybeans. In addition, I made a batch of monkey munch. I'm really lucky that those made it to the party as Beanie Daddy kept picking at the stash before I could even fill up the bags.

I made favor bags using pink lunch sacks and brown ribbon with white polka dots. A little thank you tag with a monkey sporting a pink bow was added to keep the monkey theme going.


The next creative endeavor that I undertook was a birthday banner. This was actually pretty fun. Jilly and I went to Michael's and scoured the craft paper aisle for different variations of pink and brown paper. I found some really pretty patterns, which you can't see so well in the photo.

Probably the best birthday move, though was ordering cupcakes from the fabulous Cappellino’s Crazy Cakes. They did a mix of chocolate and pound cake cupcakes with pink and brown frosting. Half had monkeys on them and the other half had pink flowers. They turned out super cute and tasted just as good.

We all had a lot of fun, especially JillyBean. She couldn't stop talking about the "party" two days before the event. The most important thing to her was having cake, balloons and a hat. I had thought about getting a new party hat, but decided just to let her wear last year's hat. We couldn't keep it on her then, but this year she wanted to wear it, for a while at least. Although it was pink and green, it still worked well and is super cute no matter what.

On one hand I cannot believe that she is going to be two tomorrow. On the other hand, it seems like she's been with us forever because I can't really remember life without her. We're going to have a small dinner celebration tomorrow night. I'm making Bean's favorite three-cheese spaghetti and she requested a "pink" sunflower cake. I typically make a lemon sunflower cake, but I guess that it won't hurt anything to make it strawberry. The celebration will continue when we visit Nana for Easter. She probably won't remember these parties, but they mean something to us. Plus, she'll have plenty of pictures to look back on when she gets older.

Shifting Gears

I have changed my mind about Jilly's birthday party. As much as I am in love with the pony/petting farm party idea I decided that it would be best to wait until next year. For one, the time that we can have a party would probably exclude some of her friends. Some of the parents are a bit more strict about weekend nap times than we are and I don't want to plan a party and have half the people not show because it falls in that time frame. Also, as much as I know that Jilly would love the animals, I don't want to scare a bunch of two-year-old kids who may like the idea of animals but not so big and not so close up. So, we'll save that party until she's three.

Instead we're going to do a Little Gym party. JillyBean had Little Gym today and on a whim I asked about their parties. Turns out that it will work out really well. A couple of friends had wanted to have parties there but they were booked. Luckily the Saturday and Sunday before her big day are available and the times are better so that we don't have a bunch of sleepy, grumpy toddlers.

So I have shifted gears and decided that since it will be a fun, active event that the theme will be monkeys. I found this invitation and I think that it's adorable. I like the "tu tu" reference as well and can use it to build on the fact that she'll be two.

These cupcakes are adorable and will work well with the theme. I think that it will be fun. The kids will get a chance to play, dance and sing for the first hour then the last part will be pizza and cupcakes. Maybe we can find a little pin-the-tail-on-the-money game.

Two Years....Almost

JillyBean turns two in April. Yes, it's a month-and-a-half away, but I wouldn't be me if I weren't already planning a party.

Last year's party took place in Tennessee and was for family and close friends who we rarely get to see. Yeah, there were more than 30 people at the bash. It was a pink and green affair with a frog theme. Bean LOVES frogs.

I had wanted the woman who made our wedding cake to make JB's birthday cake, but she was unavailable and recommended one of her students. She did a fabulous job making a lemon "smash" cake for Jilly decked with pink icing and a green frog sitting on top of a lily pad. All of the guests got to eat pink, green and chocolate cupcakes that were awesome.

This year I am somewhat conflicted by what to do. Her birthday falls just before Easter (she was born on Easter Sunday) and we will probably visit Beanie Dad's family in Tennessee to celebrate the holiday. Do we want another family-only party or do I want to host a party with her friends the week before Easter? I'm leaning toward a friend party.

Beanie Nana gave Jilly a pair of red cowboy boots for Christmas and Beanie Grandma had given her a skirt that has cows and horses on them. She's really into cows and horses these days so I found a nearby horse farm that hosts kid birthday parties. It seems like a blast - the kids can take pony rides and pet the farm animals. I asked the woman if it's too much for a bunch of two-year-olds and she said that they have hosted several parties for kids that young. They only host parties in the afternoon since they give riding lessons in the mornings. I think that it will be fun, even if Bean won't really remember it. But that's what pictures are for, right?

Thinking of this theme has led me to do a bit of searching for items to fit it. Right now I am leaning toward invitations that have a vintage cowgirl on them. I think that they're adorable. I found a few others that have farm animals on them or horses, but this little girl kind of reminds me of Jilly, only with brown hair.

I also love these cakes:

Am I going a bit overboard for a toddler's birthday? Probably. But the way I see it, I only have a year or two more where I'm in complete control....