Pink Lemonade Party Pour Deux

I craved Pink Lemonade while pregnant with Nelle.  It was the perfect combination of sweet and tart.  So the theme for Nelle's 2nd Birthday was set in stone before I even met her :)  This party is double the fun because one of my best friends in the world, Meredith,  had her little girl Alexandra a week after Nelle, and once we moved back to Virginia I knew it would be great fun for these spunky little girls to share a birthday party.

The invites were designed by uber-talented Tracy from Paper & Ink Designs.  I gave her the theme and details, and she created the invite as well as the super cute goody-bag labels.  Love how it turned out, and I used it as the template for both the awning for the lemonade stands and the sugar cookie design.  

Alex's Lemonade Stand during construction.  

Nelle's Finished Stand.

Pink and Yellow Lemon-Shaped Sugar Cookies. 

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes with Pink Lemonade Frosting and candied Lemon Slices.  

Sweets and Treats!  Most of the yummy pink and yellow treats were Dollar Store Finds.

I made tiny lemonade stands to label the dishes on the table.  Yummy mini-hot dogs,  mini-BBQ chicken sandwiches, fruit kabobs and mini corn-on-the-cob on a stick.  And of course, no pink lemonade party would be complete without some pink lemonade :)

The pink lemonade cookie favors.  

Nelle & Alex sitting on their lemonade stands.  

The girls had a little tea party on the stands, and Nelle now keeps all of her tea sets inside the stand in her room.  I love that she can still use it after the party.

You are My Sunshine Baby Shower

Having a large extended family is great.  When you are a kid, your cousins are your best friends.  If you are lucky, those friendships continue into adulthood.  My cousin McKaela is one of the most fabulous women I know, and I was thrilled to find out that she and her husband Patrick were expecting their first child. They are my daughters godparents, and honestly, I can't think of two people who will make better parents to this lucky little person.  They decided not to find out the gender of their little nugget, so a neutral baby shower was on tap.  I settled on You Are My Sunshine as the theme because I love the color combination of yellow, gray and turquoise - I was so excited to find out during the planning that McKaela's dad, a professional musician, would sing this sweet tune to McK when she was just a nugget.  It was meant to be :)

Invites were designed by Frilly Milly Events.  The backs were a coordinating yellow and gray chevron, and the address labels were adorable wrap-around sunshines.  Perfect introduction to the event to come.

I painted the canvases, thinking they would be cute as decorations for the shower and then could be reused  as artwork over baby's crib.  Love the way they turned out.  

The shower was in the evening, love the way the sunlight came through our huge backyard trees, really transformed the whole space

No baby shower is complete without a bar, right?  We just brought out our kitchen table for the event.  

Paper Good by the Preppy Pink Pony

I copied the design from the canvas art for the sugar cookies.  Guests could bring home their own little bags of sunshine.  I used the same You are my Sunshine graphic from the invites for the gift bag tags.  

Having the Shower in the evening did present a lighting problem - we had no way to plug in any lights, and the space is too large to use lighting from the house.  So my solution was to hang Ball jars from the huge trees and put candles in them.  They looked gorgeous, but we found out at dusk that you need a LOT of candles to light that large of a space :)  

I loved the look of vintage turquoise Ball jars, but at between $10 - $20 each,  there was no way I could afford (or even find) as many as I needed.  So I bought new jars, and used a turquoise glass tint to make them look old.  The process took 24 hours start to finish and included baking the jars, but they were well worth the wait.  I now have 4 dozen gorgeous turquoise Ball jars for future events. 

Mini Chalkboards were used for the food and beverage labels

 Lemons, yellow tulips and yellow fabric were easy color-coordinating decorations.

 Congratulations McK and Pat!  Cant wait to meet my new favorite person :)

Welcome Baby Hayes!

I've been friends with Joy since middle school, and although we are complete opposites physically (she = tall beautiful blonde, me = short mousy brunette), we swear we are the same person living in two different bodies.  We have identical taste in most everything, especially of the design aesthetic.  So when Joy found out her second baby was going to be a boy, I knew immediately what her shower theme should be - because it was exactly what I would want!

The sign, cupcakes and cookies were all designed to match her super cute nursery theme.  The colors are red, blue and khaki, with a nautical feel.  

Joy and her husband Kevin have talked forever about opening their own coffee shop,  I made chocolate fudge cupcakes with espresso butter cream frosting.  Yum.

Treat bags included red star, blue "H" and black lab sugar cookies.  Hayes' nursery has a sweet black lab poster on one wall.

Congratulations Joy and Kev!  Little Hayes is one lucky little boy :)

RAWR! Our Dino is FOUR!

Robots? A thing of the past. Dinos? Still a hit with this 4 year old. Dinosaurs have been the one constant in this house for the last 2 years. They still elicit large growls from Deuce, followed by a fit of giggles. He loves them all; Triceratops, Stegosaurus (loving referred to as "steggy"), Velociraptor, Allosaurus and especially the T-Rex. We do not Dino-scriminate. So a dino-loving 4 year old gets a Dino-riffic Dino Party. It was January, so we did some Anti-snow dances and then scheduled a Dino Dig at one of the great local Virginia Parks.

Deuces actual birthday fell on the day of his party, so I set up a mini-breakfast party with all of the decorations from the real thing.  Deuce gave an approving RAWR.

I think I've found a way to incorporate twine into party decorations for the past 5 parties I've hosted.  I love twine!  There, I said it.  

Purple, Orange and Green Dinos, OH MY!  Sugar Cookies T-Rex, Stegosaurus and # 4 Cookies. 

This little styrofoam cave was a stocking stuffer from Christmas, it worked great as our cupcake stand. 

Half of the cupcakes are topped with mini Dino eggs, the others are flipped over and drizzled with red, orange and yellow icing to become volcano's with hot lava.  

We decorated with a Deuce is 4! sign, and then scattered pictures of Deuce from previous years.

The Goody Bags!  I wish I had taken a picture of the dinosaur masks and Dinosaur sticker scenes that we put in the bags.  Many of the kids wore their masks home, they were super cute. 

We hope you had a Dino-mite time!

I forgot to take the super awesome Dino Sweater off the hangar ahead of time, so Deuce is rockin' some 80's shoulder pads.  

We called our Park-assigned party helper, Chris, "the child whisperer".  He spoke, they listened.  He brought out snakes, turtles and an array of slimy kid-loving creatures for everyone to pet.

The "Dino Dig" was a hit.  Chris hid about 100 little dinos in a sand pit and the kids were given shovels and rakes and let loose to find them. 

We also did a nature walk with all kinds of fun clues hidden every few yards with something new for the kids to learn about. 

The child whisperer had them captivated!