elsie's fifth birthday fiesta

Just before Miss Elsie Jo turned five we hosted a little fiesta themed birthday party at our home to celebrate.  Which really just meant chips, queso, tacos and sweets.  Plus sombrerros.  But hey.  I had a three week old and it was snowing.  You do what you can.  Ha.

Originally Elsie asked me for a 'unikitty hatchimal taco party'.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off, so I nudged her towards her love of tacos and we settled on a fiesta.  I ordered some random fiesta decor off Amazon, my mom picked up some cacti from Home Depot, and we rolled with it.

Our taco meal consisted of your average beef with store bought taco seasoning, along with some slow cooker cilantro lime chicken we made following this recipe. Chris made a giant batch of guacamole that naturally we forgot was in the fridge until over halfway through the party.  Chips, queso and a couple kinds of salsa as well as some fresh cut fruit and veggies rounded out the meal.  The sweets included cookies made by the oh so talented Jenny, churro cupcakes my mom made, and a chocolate cake by Hyvee for good measure.

With Elsie's birthday being in February, it has always been tough to come up with activities for a bunch of kiddos in our home.  Next year we might try to do the party elsewhere (because families keep expanding and I think we had upwards of 16 children plus adults even after some couldn't make it!), but this year I stupidly got brave and decided to let the kids paint pots to go along with the cacti we got as favors.  Thankfully all of my mom friends are champs and helped out and somehow the only children who ended up with paint on them were mine.  Figures.  But the kids did a great job and the pots turned out pretty cute!  Sending them home with a live cactus that actually hurts when you touch it might have been a jerk move, but it just seemed so fitting.

Elsie loved having all her friends over to play, and was genuinely excited but each one of the gifts she received.  That girl my still have a short fuse, but she loves hard and adores all her little friends.  Thanks to everyone who came to help celebrate her birthday, she had a blast!

thea's ice cream birthday party

Leading up to Thea's birthday party, my mom was worried because we weren't 'doing' as much as we had for previous parties.  We didn't craft a lot of decorations or special favors.  There weren't any extensive backdrops made.  I kept it simple because I just didn't have the energy to come up with anything too complicated.  Also I originally planned to have the party at our house, just having the kids play in the backyard.  But the weeks prior the weather was miserably hot and I couldn't imagine asking everyone to hang out back there.  So we switched to a swimming party at my parent's house.  Naturally I think the high ended up being maybe 82?  It was beautiful in the shade.

Still, I'm glad we made the switch, and the laid back party was perfect, everyone seemed happy, I wasn't stressed, Thea gasped at every decoration and every present and ate plenty of ice cream and overall just had a great time.

We had the party at 3:30pm.  To eat there was an ice cream bar, a cake made by one friend Jennifer, and cookies made by my other friend Jennifer!  Those girls definitely know how to make adorable (and delicious) sweets.  We also had some cheddar squares and chex mix.  The pink bowls for toppings came from Hyvee, the jars for the syrups from the dollar store, and pretty much everything else we already had or I got on Amazon.

My parent's pool is wonderful for swimming with smaller kiddos.  The shallow end is more of a deck, maybe only 18 inches or so deep?  And the deep end doesn't even quite reach 6 feet.  It makes it much easier to keep track of little ones, and allows the adults to relax a little bit.  :)

I've already got my eyes set on a mermaid pool party for next summer.  Hopefully the little miss doesn't develop any strong opinions before then.  Wishful thinking I'm sure!!  Haha.

elsie's pokemon 4th birthday party

After giving birth to three girls, I can absolutely tell you I never thought I'd be planning a Pokemon birthday party.  Granted I've planned a glittery dinosaur birthday party and a school bus party, so I shouldn't be all that surprised.  But Pokemon?  I dragged and dragged and DRAGGED my feet on this one.  Ryann and Elsie became obsessed with Pokemon after Christopher let them watch a few episodes of the old cartoon (which turned into many many MANY episodes).  Elsie now loves Pikachu and naturally had to have a Pokemon birthday party.  But as much as I threw a fit about this theme, I'd venture to say everything turned out pretty well.  We didn't go too over the top, but it worked and the kiddos had a great time!

A friend made Elsie's Pikachu dress and I think it is so stinkin' cute.  Just another perfect way to girlie up the Pokemon theme.  It is made out of a t-shirt that I bought at WalMart.  Her bow is by Zozu Baby.  And I made the streamer background much like I made the one for Thea's birthday party.  Since I was hanging this one indoors up against a wall, I just taped the silver mylar curtain straight to the wall.  Then I tied the streamers to a clothes line and used command hooks to hang it to the wall.  Minimal effort, big impact.  I've used 2-3 rolls of crepe paper per color on both backdrops I've made.

 

The party was from 11-1, so we served lunch.  On the menu was Panera mac n cheese, two different tortilla roll-ups, fruit, veggies and little smokies.  Desserts for the party included sugar cookies made by my friend Jenny, oreo truffles courtesy of my mom, and a chocolate cake with red frosting made by Jennifer.  I'm so grateful to have friends and family that can cook and bake.  I can make brownies.  I can make chocolate chip cookies.  But beyond that it's a toss up.  Elsie wanted lemonade to drink so we took the easy way out and bought some lemonade!

Most of the decorations were just random red, yellow and black items that we grabbed last minute at Party America and Target.  I found the idea for the favor bags on Pinterest.  I didn't follow their instructions, just created the different pieces I'd need in my silhouette software and used the machine to cut them out.  Elsie was able to help me put them together with double stick tape.  After had the first one done she looked at me with a huge smile and said "Mommy you are AWESOME!"  It doesn't take much to please kiddos and it sure is fun.

The Pikachu headbands below also came from Pinterest.  In her instructions she says to cut the rectangles 1.5 inches by 12 inches, but later in the comments she mentions only getting about 6 rectangles per sheet.  And the 16 inch ribbons plus only 12 inches of foam didn't go all the way around Elsie's head.  I think the rectangle is supposed to be cut on the 18 inch side of the foam.  We didn't do these as an activity at the party, just had them ready to go for the kiddos to wear.

We lucked out with a beautiful February day, so we were able to spend a fair amount of time outside.  Excellent since Elsie's one request was a pinata.  I was trying to figure out how to pull that off inside without destroying anything.  Lol.  We also played pin the tail on Pikachu.

Elsie we had a fabulous time celebrating you turning four.  Can't wait to see what you dream up for your birthday next year.  Love you lots girlfriend!