Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party

My middle daughter turned four recently, and her heart's desire was a Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party.  Because I was also planning her big sister's Aloha/Summer Splash Party for the same weekend, I needed to keep things simple but berry sweet.

We quickly settled on a kids' cooking party at Foodie Kids, one of our regular haunts.  The Foodie Kids proprietors are so lovely and personalize every child's experience there.  And we were lucky enough to host our party in their new store, which is charming and beautiful:

These cute vintage strawberry printable invitations from hellolovedesigns set the tone for the party:

I ordered personalized aprons for each party guest from Lisa at The Stitch Boutique.  Lisa happens to be a local Austin mama and provided super-fast turnaround and fabulous customer service.  The girls loved their aprons!

I also drew inspiration from the sophisticated Strawberry Shortcake party styled by Kiki's List.  Based on her vendor recommendations, I ordered favor boxes from Simple Tastes and wooden bead strawberry necklaces from UK Sparkle.

The birthday girl donned a strawberry print dress from Gymboree and a darling Strawberry Shortcake necklace from Queeny Belle Frills:

Little sister wore a strawberry dress, too: 

The party commenced with each child decorating her own chef's hat.

Each girl then made a strawberry and pink marshmallow wand, strawberry lemonade, a pink pizza, and a cupcake with a Strawberry Shortcake fondant topper.

After eating, clean-up, and a sweet happy birthday song, the party was done!  Sweet, simple, and super easy!

(Planning a child's birthday party? Check out our Woodland Fairy, Sugar Plum Fairy, Winter Wonderland, Luau, Silhouettes, Butterflies, and Bubbles Balls and Balloons parties for inspiration and vendor recommendations!)

Sharing with Celebrations at Home, Serenity Now, Six Sisters Stuff, Under the Table and Dreaming, Tatertots and Jello, I Heart Naptime, and Seven Thirty Three.

Aloha ~ A Summer Birthday Party

My oldest two daughters share a birthday.  For the past three years, they've humored me with joint birthday parties involving butterflies, silhouettes, and woodland fairies.  Not this year. At 7 and 4, they wanted parties to reflect their individual interests. And since May is only my busiest month of the year at work, it seemed totally sane to plan back-to-back birthday parties for the same weekend.

Luckily, they chose simple themes that were fun to execute.  My oldest wanted to host her friends at our private neighborhood park on the lake for a Luau / Summer Splash extravaganza.   We rented an inflatable waterslide and ordered fabulous Aloha printables from Stefanie Richter at Anna and Blue Paperie.  Stefanie happens to live in my city, and I was super happy to support a local mom's business.  She's also incredibly talented --- go, check out her blog as soon as you finish reading this post ;) -- and her work provided the basis for our party.

Here is the invitation, which I backed with yellow cardstock and mailed in bright pink envelopes:

The birthday girl chose a pink and purple lei to match her swimsuit:

We kept food simple for this mid-afternoon gathering: Hawaiian pizza, a tropical fruit display (including chocolate-dipped pineapple) from Edible Arrangements, cupcakes, madeleines, and Kona Ice served in coconut cups with umbrella straws.

 

With some inspiration from Cookies Are My Canvas, my friend Chari at One Classy Cookie once again came through with beautiful cookie favors (She also made the cookies for our Woodland Fairy and Winter Wonderland parties).  Each child also chose a lei to wear and take home.

In addition to the waterslide, which was a hit, we provided hula hoops and beach balls, and the kids also had full use of our park, including playscapes, tennis, and basketball courts.  The girls also crafted shell bracelets.  There was plenty of activity, and I think everyone slept well that night!

Next up, my middle daughter's Strawberry Shortcake baking party!

(Sharing with Savvy Southern Style, Celebrations at Home, Real Family Fun, and Seven Thirty Three)

Teacher Appreciation Week: Day Two

Our week-long appreciation of our first-grade teacher continues.  On Monday, this. On Tuesday, a tower of little bundt cakes in our teacher's favorite flavors:

By the way, if you haven't tried Nothing Bundt Cakes, you must.  They opened shop in my neighborhood last year, and they've become my go-to bakery for holidays and special occasions.  So. Amazing.  :-)

How are you honoring your teachers this week?

Winter Wonderland Birthday Party

My youngest turned two in early January, and although we live in a snow-free climate, I wanted to celebrate the season with an all-white Winter Wonderland Birthday Party.

We planned to host twenty children and their parents at Gorgeous Millie, which is home to our daughter's teacher-led playgroup.  It's a beautiful space filled with quality toys and sensory experiences for toddlers, and the staff undertakes most of the clean-up, making for a very low-stress party venue.  I vowed to keep this party simple, especially after the previous month's holiday tea effort.  So, I booked our favorite face painter and children's musician to entertain the young guests, and did nothing else until three days before the party.

And that's when my plan for simplicity failed miserably.  Panicky about my lack of advance planning, I turned to Pinterest for help.  After pinning no less than seventy beautiful, wonderland-y images, I got to work.  First, I attempted to make these darling snowman macarons.  I love French macarons and had wanted to learn how to make them myself --- what better reason than my daughter's birthday? So, I spent a small fortune on ingredients and started mixing and piping.  Turns out that patient piping is not my strong suit, and my decorating ability is even worse.  The result: utter pinstrosity.  They tasted really good -- the recipe is definitely worth repeating -- but they weren't exactly recognizable as snowmen and weren't presentable to the public:

Snowman Macarons, pre-filling

  
Next effort: the cute Snowman Milk Bottles featured all over the blogosphere (like here, here, and here).  I easily procured the bottles (store-brand light mocha frappuccinos) and craft supplies, managed to burn myself only twice while hot-gluing the buttons onto the glass, and got my husband to drive to another county to purchase powdered donut holes (which surprisingly are not sold anywhere in my rather large city).  Things were looking good, until I tried to insert the straws into the donut holes.  Not one of the online tutorials had bothered to mention how difficult this is!  The straws fill up with donut residue, and the donuts crumble.  My end result looked garish and gave the other parents a good laugh, but luckily, my primary audience of two-year-olds was easily charmed.  :)

Less than ten minutes before the party started, everything finally came together.  The Gorgeous Millie staff had decorated the space with an arctic animal playscape, large hanging snowflakes, and white balloons; the setting was ready.  

I covered the children's dining table with snowy white fleece, big glittery snowflakes, and winter animal figurines from Pottery Barn.

The food table featured all-white, kid-friendly foods.  Tall ornamented apothecary jars housed fresh popcorn, powdered donuts, and fluffy marshmallows.  Homemade cupcakes were adorned with edible silver snowflakes and white pearls.  Silver snowflakes topped vanilla and salted caramel cake balls.  Handmade snowflake sugar cookies took center stage. A snowman cheese ball provided a savory break from the sweets.   Mercury glass ice skates, polar bears, and owls completed the tablescape.

In addition to milk, coffee, bottled water, and prosecco, we offered a hot cocoa bar.  I made a slow cooker's worth of Ghiradelli hot chocolate, and guests chose from toppings including mini-marshmallows, caramel chips, white chocolate chips, whipped cream, and peppermint.  The hot cocoa was a hit, even on a warm Texas winter day.  

Unfortunately, we didn't get a good close-up of my favorite detail from the cocoa bar: these adorable printed wooden spoons from Garnish, which said "Happy Day":

via

Alecia, from Doodle Arts, arrived, and started transforming the children:

And Mr. Will, a staple in the life of every Austin child, mixed "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Frosty the Snowman"into his musical repertoire.  

Craft tables with easy make-your-own snowmen and snowglobe kits kept the little hands busy.

And favors were simple: Each family received a package of homemade snow-dough (non-toxic playdough) and a choice of one of these books:

We also donated 20 pairs of mittens and hats to a local children's charity; the number 20 seemed right as it represented not only the number of our party guests, but also #20actsofkindness just three weeks after Newtown.  

Ultimately, our birthday girl had a blast, and we loved celebrating her joyful life.  :-)

Many thanks to these wonderful vendors:

Sugar Cookies: One Classy Cookie
Cake Balls: Austin Cake Ball
Edible Paper Snowflake Cupcake Toppers: Sweet DejaVu
Paper straws, printed spoons, and hot cocoa cups: Garnish


(Sharing with Between Naps on the Porch, Celebrations at Home, Savvy Southern Style, Tip Junkie and Homemaker on a Dime)