It’s crazy to think that we just celebrated Joey’s 2nd birthday last week.  It feels like yesterday I gave birth to him.  Time is going by so quickly!  Joey has turned into quite the toddler these past few months and I have a sneaking suspicion the terrible two’s are upon us.  Especially since his favorite word is “noooo”.

Joey loves playing with anything that has wheels and loves to do puzzles.  He also loves anything Juliana is currently playing with.  He is doing so great potty training and now wears big boy undies out when we run our errands.  His favorite foods are macaroni and chicken cutlets.   He also has a bad granola bar habit.  We are trying to cut back.  haha!

We had our friends over to the house to celebrate last weekend.  Luckily the weather was perfect!  It’s been sort of back and forth here, and it’s been raining a lot.  But we lucked out!  The weather was ideal for an outside BBQ.  Joey was so excited to wake up on the morning of his party and see that Grandma Nancy + Grandpa Pat came to surprise him and celebrate with us!  (Juliana was also so excited but she waited up until 10 pm the night before to see them arrive!)

We had such a fun afternoon with our friends hanging out, watching the kids bounce and eating some yummy bbq food!  After being indoors for so many months during the Winter, it was so enjoyable to just hang out on the deck and cook out.

I served my “cheater’s sangria” and it was a total hit!  All you need is a bottle of Sangria (I grabbed a couple at Costco) and a bottle of Sprite/7-up.  I filled mason jars with ice and some sliced fruit (lemon, lime, orange).  Then poured the glasses half full with sangria and topped them with sprite.  I decorated the mason jars with ribbon and finished the drink off with a colorful paper straw.  They were perfect!

Monday was Joey’s actual birthday and the celebrations continued.  He opened all of his presents from family and I cooked a huge dinner with all of his favorite foods!  The kids stayed up so late playing with all of his new gifts.  I would say his birthday celebrations were a total success!

The party details were super easy for me, and I’ll tell you why.  After each party we have I take all of the leftover, unused decorations and pack them away.  I pack away bowls, serving dishes and even banners I have made.  I knew I wanted to do a primary color theme for Joey’s party and when I looked in the boxes of what I had and saw all of Juliana’s Sesame Street party decor, I saw that Joey’s BBQ was already half done!  The “Happy Birthday” banner hanging on the drink table used to say “Happy 1st Birthday Juliana”.  The “Joey is two” huge banner that we hung on the deck used to say “Sunny Days” (Sesame themed, remember?).  I found yellow and red plastic bowls and a few unused table clothes.  So I really didn’t have that much to buy in order to decorate!  As I told Mike, this is when my hoarding tendencies come in handy.  

For the party favors I used my silhouette cameo to personalize cups for all of our party guests!  I love the way these came out!  I just filled them with some colored paper filler that I grabbed at the dollar store.  They took no time to make and I just love giving little personalized gifts.

I did want to make a small balloon arch to hang over the front door.   Luckily for Grandpa, he was the only one in the kitchen when I pulled out the helium tank and got stuck helping me blow up, tie, and string 50 balloons onto a piece of fishing wire.  Ha!  He was such a trooper!  Unfortunately it was so windy that it was really hard to hang the way I wanted it, so I just tied it outside on the deck as one big balloon column.

Joey got a bounce house from Grandma + Grandpa for his birthday gift and the kids had a blast jumping in it!  It really was the greatest idea to just buy one to own instead of rent.  Obviously, it wouldn’t work for a ton of kids/and or/larger kids, but it worked just fine for our party.  It was just a bit more then renting one and now we will have it for future parties/playdates/rainy days (because you know I’ll plug that in right in the living room..haha!).  I linked the one we got here but I also loved this one, and this one!

Happy Birthday Mr. Baby Joey!  We hope you had as much fun as we did!  XO

 Hope you enjoyed partying with us!

XO Danielle

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Mini and I hosted our 3rd annual Tea party this weekend and let me just tell you, we had such a good time!  She was so into planning it with me this year.  From the decor to the menu she had an input on all of it.  Everytime I did anything this past month either in the craft room or the kitchen she would ask “mama, if that for the tea party?”   I love how excited she is getting over our yearly tradition.

We invited all of the girls in her class this year so we were expecting a pretty full house.   I planned on serving brunch and having a craft activity for all of the girls to work on.   Almost all of the girls Mini invited came with their moms and they all looked so pretty in their Valentine’s Day outfits.  I was impressed with how well behaved all of the girls were.  Last year it was a bit more chaotic with a bunch of 3 year old girls running around but this year the girls sat at their big table and ate lunch and chatted just like little ladies.   Such a difference one year made.  It was so cute to see them all sitting and talking together as they munched on tiny sandwiches and sipped their lemonade.  They all worked on their craft and even decided they all wanted to color pictures after.

Party Details

Food + Drinks:

We had little tea sandwiches that included: egg salad on wheat bread // chicken salad in mini croissants // heart shaped pb&j.  I served spinach and cheese mini quiche and for the first time ever a ham and swiss puff pastry pinwheel.  (My friend Christina and I literally assembled and threw that in the oven last minute and it was pretty tasty!)

Of course we needed a dessert bar.  Which all the girls were happily enjoying before having any thing to eat for lunch  I just picked up some items at the store as to not make too much work for myself.  We had mini powdered donuts // mini vanilla and chocolate cupcakes // blueberry scones // chocolate chip muffins // lemon bar + pudding individual treats.  A few of our friends generously brought us some muffins and lemon bars to add to our sweets table!   Lastly, if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen I made a batch of chocolate covered rice krispie treat pops last week.  Well, we had so many sweets that I ended up wrapping them for the girls to take home!  You can see the picture below.

For drinks I grabbed some raspberry lemonade for the girls.  I also made a batch of Tazo Iced passion tea lemonade (it’s SO good!).  And of course, I had a make your own mimosa bar for the moms!  I put out a few bottles of prosecco on ice and had carafes of grapefruit juice and orange juice so moms could make their mimosa to their liking.  PARTY TIP:  I take a 12 count cupcake pan a few days before the party and pour water into all the cupcake holes.  Then I stick a little slice of lemon in each one.  I freeze the tin and when it’s frozen pop out all the big ice cubes.  It is perfect for keeping pitchers of water and tea cold and you can even see the slices of lemon floating around the drinks.

The Décor:

I set up on big kids sized table for the girls so that they could all sit together while they ate.  I have a few IKEA Lack tables in the playroom, so I pushed them together with another kids sized table that I had to create one long, rectangular table.  I needed a table cloth big enough so I went to the fabric store and picked an adorable printed fabric.  I had them cut how much I needed to cover all four tables.  (I won’t tell you how much I accidently spent on said fabric after the store wouldn’t take my coupon, but no worries.   I just told Mike I would make a pair of palazzo pants out of the fabric so it wouldn’t be a total waste.  If anyone wants a pair of palazzo pants, let me know, haha!)

I had leftover pink disposable plates from Mini’s 2nd birthday party (this is why I don’t throw anything away..) so we set the table with those.  I bought small clear cups for the girls and personalized each one with their name in vinyl.  It was so fun to watch them find their spot at the table and use their very own personalized cup.  I picked up a bunch of simple flowers from Costco and trimmed half of them down to make table centerpieces.  I used stemless wine glasses as the vases and they were the perfect height!

I strung some garland that I made with my silhouette cameo in both hearts and X + O’s on the wall beside the big table.  Mini just loved it.  (After the party I took the garland off that wall and strung it on our fireplace!)

The Craft:

I originally planned to make salt dough heart ornaments for all of the girls to paint.  Well, I did make salt dough hearts.  I made a ton of them.  I had them drying on the dining room table for days.  The night before the party, I thought that some were still a little soft, maybe because we have had such cold weather.  So I stuck them in the oven at 200* to finish drying out the dough.  Well, as soon as they came out of the oven they all started to crack into pieces.  Insert panic mode here.  The party was the next morning, and we already bought all the paint for this project.

My GENIUS of a best friend suggested that I have all the girls paint pieces of the salt dough in the colors that Mini picked at the store, then glue them all onto a board to make a mosaic out of them.  Well that is exactly what I did.  And I am so in love with this project.  (See it in the pictures below!)  It is the perfect keepsake from her tea party that all of her friends had a part in making.  Mini can’t decide where in her room to hang it, but she thinks it is just “awesome”!

Our Valentine’s Day Tea Party tradition is becoming on of my favorite days of the year.  I love planning the details with Mini and including her in all of the decisions.  Seeing her face when it all comes together is just priceless.  I am so grateful for these memories that we are making and canhardly wait to start planning for next year!

Hope you all enjoyed + maybe decide to throw your own Tea Party!

XO Danielle

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We had such a great time celebrating Joey’s first birthday yesterday!  I still can’t believe I have a one year old!  I wanted his party to be sweet and fun.   I loved the idea of a dessert only party.  Simple, easy and full of sugar.  I decided to base the theme around Cookies + Milk.  There are SO many cute ideas on how to make this theme unique.  From milk jugs to cookie buffets, it is adorable.

I love to make desserts so this theme was right up my alley.  I must have baked (and ate) a billion chocolate chip cookies!  I dipped everything under the sun in chocolate.

Strawberries + Pretzels + Marshmallows + Oreos.

Seriously, everything is better when it’s covered in chocolate.   I threw in some cannolis and cream puffs to round out the table.  Absolute sugar perfection.

In the past I have designed all the invitations/cupcake toppers/water bottle labels/etc myself.  I wanted to take an easier approach with this party because we have just been so busy travelling and with school and work that I didn’t want to go crazy trying to pull this all together.  I found an incredibly sweet Etsy shop that had this printable party pack ready to go for me.  Um, why did I not know about this before?  I love a good DIY as you know, but time has been limited these days, so this option worked perfectly!  The party pack had everything I needed to create the perfect party!

I was able to spend some time creating the dessert stands that you see pictured.

It is a super easy DIY to do for parties.  Simply wrap canned food items in white cardstock.  I use cardboard cake plates for the top.  Glue down a piece of scrapbook paper in the color of your theme.  I chose this plaid to add some extra colors to the light blue/brown of the theme.  Glue a thick ribbon to the edge and there you have it.  Super simple party stands made to match any table and seriously cost next to nothing to make.  The 3 stands took about 15 minutes of time with my glue gun.  Love an easy project. 

We had such a great afternoon celebrating with some of our friends.

I couldn’t have wished for a more perfect party for my sweet one year old.

Happy Birthday Joey.