Toddler Birthday Party Ideas: 3rd Birthday

Theme: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

My boy's third birthday just recently passed and he enjoyed it so much he kept talking about it for days.  I think the best thing you can do as a parent is to wear your heart on your sleeve for your kids.  Never be afraid of showing them your love and excitement.  They'll know without a doubt that you love them and it won't matter how much you spend to make them happy if in the end you don't give them the time and attention they deserve.

For birthdays, I suggest asking the BIRTHDAY BOY/GIRL what they want.  Show them 3-5 options for themes and let them narrow it down.  My kid actually wanted Star Wars as his #1 pick and Caterpillar as his 2nd.  I thought of how unpredictable toddlers are and so the idea of having light sabers being gashed in people's faces wasn't very appealing.  I read him his fave book (The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle) to really convince him otherwise.  He agreed to having both, which didn't work out for me, so I surprised him with the Caterpillar theme, which he adored and helped out with too.

Here are some samples of what we did.

 The invitations were simple and just showed the birthday boy from the most recent photoshoot he went through 3 weeks before his birthday.

 The number 3 was mosiac in his favorite style too and the caterpillar was holepunched and then hand-drawn.

 The leaf inside had 3 holes to represent his 3rd birthday.

 These centerpieces were made by my mother.

 The cake was provided by my dad.

 The party favors were labeled with "Caterpillar Food", tied with bright green ribbon, and inside were  colorful M&Ms.

 My family made balloon caterpillars to hand from trees.

The craft project was finger caterpillars with washable paint and then bubbles that floated like butterlies since we did all this at a nearby park.









THE BEST PART: All the kids had fun!

Birthday Party ideas!

SO, my son;s birthday party is coming up this Saturday.  He turned 2 on June 11th we took him to the zoo and he loved it so much.  Hugo took the whole weekend and Friday off to help me out.  Andrew loved seeing all the different animal and he got to touch fur and ate yummy Dippin' Dots with mommy ;-)

Well, we've handed out all the invites last week and because he now, sadly, only has one pair of grandparents in Utah, we had to wait for Hugo's(my hubz) parents to return from taking some children off to El Salvador on the weekend of Andrew's real birthday.   Thius, the celebration of the birth of my only son was delayed one week and there are no children coming....bummer.  The only kids that were coming for sure were my two youngest brothers, who now live in beautiful California.

So, this week is also Girl's camp for my Young Women in my ward and I'm going this week to support since I'm the president and I've been liking being around them a lot too.  I've been so busy...you have no idea.  I can literally fall asleep standing up right now.

Also, here's the birthday card layout all my friends in Facbook got to vote on since I couldn't make up my mind.  The colors are dark, but the prints came out GREAT and I'm getting discounts since I keep returning!

There will be no kids at my little one's birthday :-(, and we only invite family to come, so I had to resort to making it fun for him and interesting for the grown-ups and teens.  I'm making up games and I'm probably going to use about 3-4 more ideas from Minute to Win it games site.  I like the show, since I glance at it when my hubz lays to watch TV, and EVERYONE always wants to participate.  Plus, I made a colored theme and a general theme too!  So, I hope everyone has fun because this has been a hectic month and I've been so tired.  I wanted a simple dish to serve at the park too, but my husband wants carne asada, which I don't mind, but he can chose that since he'll be picking up everything after too hahaha.  Well, I'll post pictures of the event later and I need to drink some good juice since I'm also detoxifying this week ;-)

Summer Pinwheels!!!

So, I haven't posted in a LONG time, so I need to do it right at this very minute, or else I'll get busy with something else.

So, I've been perusing around for photography inspiration lately and boy, have I been so amazed!!! I realize I still need to move up in equipment, and soon too, but luckily, I have a thing called creativity in my back pocket and studied a lot of art in college too so that helps.

Anyways, I found this also to make for my little Andrew.  He turns 2 this Saturday, June 11th, and we're taking him to the zoo!  I'm exited, but because of relatives being out of town on his birthday, we had to move it out to the following weekend :-(  Oh well.  Luckily, it gives me more time to collect stuff for his birthday - like decorations, candy, and DIY cute stuff.  So, I found this, and I REALLY want to make them for his birthday to decorate and stuff.  It'll be so much fun!  The invites I designed also had a special note at the bottom letting everyone know to wear the 3 basic colors on the card for a prize....which is mostly to encourage people to get involved too.  So here's the site that I will surely follow to make these great pin wheels:

From Northern Cottage

super cute, huh?!
So, I'm off to fulfill other duties in my life, but I hope you try this out and start feeling that summer happiness and dust off the winter cold ;-)

Hasta luego! 'Til next time!

Hugo's birthday!

Here are some few pictures of my husband's birthday this past Monday night.  We had visitors come until almost 9pm, and so we made the best of it and had fun :-) 

Overall, my hubby says he loved it all.  I gave him 3 bags of snacks as well to take to work and made him a poster of an earlier posted collage.  I had so much fun counting down to the days of his special day and I tried to make him feel extra special.  I made just desserts that were healthy and from scratch.  The only thing I did not make for the cake was it's base and I topped it with mashed up bananas, pineapple slices, and strawberries.  The cupcakes were made of wheat flour, low-sugar, no oil, vanilla, and 1 egg.  I had made a few more batches of chocolate cupcakes, but they burned...I'm horrible at baking, but I love using fresh ingredients instead for desserts.  Lucky for me, my husband is trying to start healthier habits so I finally had the advantage of using my better skills for desserts.  

The funniest part of this all was that Andrew, my little boy, blew out the candle for the first time!  I've been practicing for his birthday, but he tested it at my husband's birthday.  My husband and I were still touched to see him be so exited about it.  Well, in total my husband heard the birthday song about 3 times that day from, me at 12am, my family over the phone on the evening, and his family coming over later that night.  How often do you turn 25?  That's right, I think every birthday is special and celebrates another year of experiences and life itself.  Let's never forget the important people in our lives, and their very equally special days celebrating the day of their birth into this world.



A tribute to my man!

Today, is my husband's birthday!  I think I'm more exited than he is because he thinks he's getting too old and I love birthdays, period.  I don't think he's too old, I think he's just right.  So, my husband is hot and kid is a snot, I can only go one way to keep things interesting...forward.

Well, here's a little poem out to you, my love.  A shout out!  A cry of love and words from my heart.

You're my forever and always will be
The man I hug in the darkest of rooms
Feeling your warmth as my eyes are gleaming
A feeling of knowing you're fumes
Though torturing your smells sometimes are
I always know it's you not too far.

You tell me I'm pretty when I become fickle
The one true king you are learning still
Feeling your way and you make tickle
A sense of sometimes belonging fulfilled
Though we both know we are far from the end
I know as do you that marriage is downtrend.

You are my forever and always will be
The love I have for you only grows
Feelings of truth and serendipity
Oh, wait do you hear the cellos?
Though this can be hard I know one thing
I love you even when you're aging.

Well, I also want to see if I can go get this in a poster at Kinko's or some other place like it for my hubz:

I think it'd be nice to have him roll it out from it's coiled state and I'll read him the poem sometime before or after.  Wish me luck!