Cat on a Limb: birthdays

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Aqua and Orange Toddler Birthday Party

Lately I've been tending to go pretty low-key for my kids' birthday parties. Like I said in my other party post, I usually have to do everything solo, so I don't want to wear myself out so much in preparation that I can't enjoy the moment during the party itself.

For my daughter's birthday last year, which was our first year in a small apartment since moving from the house out of state, I decided to have two different gatherings; one for family and one for friends her age. I decided to just go with colors instead of worrying about a theme, which ended up saving me a lot of time.

I had a few decorations including the über trendy tissue paper pouf thingys (which I totally love).

For the kids gathering I just had a few snacks for them, pretty-fied water bottles and whole wheat carrot cake cupcakes (which were heavenly, if I do say so myself). I dyed paper doilies and cut them out with a cupcake liner template.

For an activity, besides just playing with the toys in my kids' room (which seems to be what they want to do the most), the kids made macaroni necklaces with pasta that I had dyed different colors.

And finally, as part of the goodie bags I sent them away with some homemade playdough.

Simple, yet the kids enjoyed it, so I consider it another success. :)

Friday, October 5, 2012

Toddler Puppy Birthday Party

Is everyone excited and getting ready for Halloween? Every day my kids have different ideas about what they want to dress up as, so while I wait for them to make up their minds I thought I would post about some other things.

My daughter's fourth birthday is coming up in November. I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year, but I wanted to share what I did the past two years. I usually have to do everything by myself, so my kids' parties tend to be pretty low-key. Plus, when they're so young I don't feel like it's necessary to go all out.

For my daughter's second birthday I decided on a puppy dog theme, with light pink and lavender as the colors, since she was/is pretty much obsessed with dogs. She loves to pretend she's a dog and has done it since before she could talk.

The invitations were a simple folded cardstock with torn scrapbook paper and a simple silhouette of a dog's head on the front.

I used vinyl paw prints on the walkway and door, with balloons for a little decor outside.

Our [rental] house at the time was a cute 1940s bungalow painted white with yellow shutters. So fun!

Inside I set up a table with some finger foods for the kids (with more balloons and vinyl paw prints for decoration). We had grapes, string cheese, carrots, cucumbers, olives, homemade graham crackers in the shape of dog bones, and homemade apple chips.

I also added vinyl paw prints to plain white cups.

The cake I made was a two-layer sheet cake (homemade, 100% whole wheat, and tasted great, by the way) that I cut into the shape of a bone and frosted white. (But I won't be posting a photo of it because when I sent my husband to the store to get whipping cream he came home with the canned variety which does NOT work for frosting a cake, just FYI. So, it turned out looking horrible and since I did the cake day of the party instead of the day before like I should have, there was no time to fix it. :)

The party favors consisted of a few dog-themed items in "doggy bags".