Tutu Cute!

This weekend was Caroline's first dance recital and she was so excited. She told me a while ago that she wanted pink ballerina cupcakes at her recital (I don't know why she thought there was going to be food!). I decided to invite everyone back to the house after the recital for pink ballerina cupcakes and a few more pink things! Here is the dessert table:
It definitely met the requirements of pink and ballerina! There were pink cake pops, pink marshmallow pops, pink ballerina slipper cookies, pink ballerina cupcakes, and pink punch.
I also put some pictures of her dancing or at performances throughout the year on the wall behind the table. I think it turned out so cute! Thanks to everyone who came to see Caroline - you are all "tutu" sweet!

Taylor loves Elmo!

I was so excited to get to plan, decorate, and bake for Taylor's 2nd Birthday party. She loves Elmo and I found so many cute ideas to use for the party. Caroline had a Sesame Street party when she turned 2, so I had some things from her party that I was able to incorporate into Taylor's party. I love how everything turned out and I hope that everyone enjoyed the party!
Here is the banner and Elmo lanterns. I have seen these banners all over the internet and finally decided to try and make one. It was so easy - just print, cut, cut, cut, cut, and tie ribbon. I think it adds a great personal touch. The Elmo lanterns were small red lanterns purchased from here with eyes, a nose, and a mouth cut out of fun foam and glued to them. They were so cute!
Here are the party hats, visors, and hair clippies (which were one of the party favors!). I saw some hats similar to these on etsy and thought I could make something kind of like them. I just took a piece of red cardstock and cut it into a hat shape and then glued on cardstock eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I then added a big red pompom on top and red maribou at the bottom. The visors were left over from Caroline's party. I got the idea for the hair clippies from here. They turned out so cute and the girls looked adorable in them!
These are picture holders that I made from red binder clips. I glued on wiggle eyes, a cardstock nose, and added some ribbon. I was thinking about using them for placecards or labels for the food during the party, but I never got around to that!

Now for some of the treats. There were a lot of them, but I found so many cute ideas and wanted to do all of them!
Elmo pretzel sticks. These are just pretzels rods dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with red decorating sugar, with an Elmo cupcake decoration on top. I hope to use this idea for more parties.Elmo cake pops. Mine were not nearly as cute as these, but I loved them!

Elmo cookies. Thanks Kate for decorating all of the them. We used a grass tip in a pastry bag to make the icing look like fur and then added marshmallow and black M&Ms for eyes and an orange icing nose.Marshmallow pops. I originally saw the idea here and have used them for several parties. They are very easy to make and really add to the presentation.
Elmo fruit tray. This was really easy to put together and made a great addition to the table.

The birthday girl! I painted her Tshirt and made her tutu for the party! She looked adorable!The other "little" girls. I made the shirts for a party favor. They looked so cute in them!
It turned out to be such a cute party. It was red and Elmo and bright and fun and everyone had a good time!

Our First Week of Christmas Countdown Activities!!

This year I decided to do a Christmas Countdown Calendar with activities for each day of the month of December. Some of the activities are things that are going on anyway and I just added them to the countdown. I had made a cute calendar last year and this year actually put things in it! Caroline was so excited to find out about the activities and she couldn't wait to get started. (It was a great day because her elf appeared at the house the same day!) She really "gets" Christmas this year and wants to know when we are going to make a birthday cake for baby Jesus and when we are going to buy him some presents! She has also already told Santa what she wants for Christmas and is pretty sure he is going to bring them for her. Here are some pictures from our first week:

December 1 - Cookies with Santa. We went to a great event where the kids wore pajamas, had their picture made with Santa, listened to Mrs. Claus read a book, and decorated and ate cookies!


December 2 - Decorate a Christmas tree for your room. I gave her the box of ornaments and a box of candy canes and let her get to work. She loves her Christmas tree!

December 3 - Write a letter to Santa. I helped her write a letter to Santa and she colored it. She is absolutely unchanging in the 3 things she has asked Santa for.

December 4 - Watch a Christmas parade. We went to Fairhope to their Christmas parade and Caroline got so much stuff!! She loved the parade even though it was about 20 degrees outside.

December 5 - Make a gumdrop wreath. I had seen this on someone's blog and thought it was so cute so Caroline and I picked up all of the things to make it and had a great time! It is hanging on the door of her bedroom.
December 6 - Drink hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows. She didn't like the hot chocolate, so just ate the marshmallows!!

We are enjoying December so much and have so many things planned. Caroline was in her first Christmas parade and had a great time "waving at all the people"! She was very disappointed when she would wave at someone and they wouldn't wave back to her. She said they weren't being very nice! I hope everyone is finding some time to enjoy this season! We certainly are!

School Days!

So we finished the first week of school with very few tears (and they were all mine!). Caroline was so excited about school and playing with her friends that she bounded into the classroom with a huge smile. I can't believe it was just one year ago when she cried for the first 37 days of school when I left her. She has certainly grown up into a confident, outgoing 3 year old who loves people and new places. I remember not long ago it took her a while to warm up to new people and she would rather be with me than anyone else - and there are days that I want that baby girl back! I love what she is becoming but I miss what she used to be. So I cried everyday when I got back in the car after leaving her at school and teared up every afternoon when I picked her up with a great big smile on her face. Growing up is hard!This is her first day of school last year. She looks so little!
First day of school - August 11, 2009.

Back to School

It is the time of year that I usually have mixed emotions - I can't believe summer is over and I can't wait for a new school year. I always start every school year with thousands of ideas and good intentions and can't wait to meet my new students and try some new craft activity. This year I only have one emotion and it is sadness. This year the only person in our house going back to school is Caroline. She will be going to a 3-year old preschool class a couple of days of week and I will substitute or volunteer (or take a nap!) while she is at school. Because she is an only child, Bob and I feel that this is the best plan for her. She gets to socialize with other children, learn a few things, and boss somebody else around for a few hours a day a couple of days of week. Although I know it is the best thing for her, I can't stand to be without her. I don't want her to be a big girl and go to school. I want her to stay with me and ask me 10,000 questions and ask me 2 dozen times to play a game or read a book. I want her to eat lunch with me and snuggle in my lap for a nap. This week I am going to take her to school every day and I am going to try to find some way to entertain myself while she is gone. The first thing I did was make back to school treats for her friends and teacher and my teacher friends. Look how cute they turned out.
These are the individual boxes for her friends. They are white chocolate covered pretzel sticks wrapped in crayon wrappers.These are the boxes I made for her teacher and my teacher friends. I tied a crayon tag that I found in the dollar spot at Michaels to them.

I would love for everyone to think I am so creative I just made this up, but really I am a great follower of directions. I found the directions on this blog and I downloaded her back to school printables kit for the crayon box. You should check out the rest of her blog and her etsy shop - she has some very cute things! Everyone loved them and Caroline was so excited to take something special for everyone. So while I sit at home and cry that my baby is at school, I am busy thinking of ideas for next week's sweet treat!

Caroline's Birthday Clubhouse

Today we celebrated Caroline's 3rd birthday with a Minnie and Mickey Mouse party. After visiting Disney World in December, she has been very excited about the mouse so we knew early on she was going to have a Minnie Mouse party and we included Mickey because he was on all the decorations! She loved all the pink and polka dots and mouse ears! We played games, ate lots of food including cake, cupcakes, and cookies, opened presents, and enjoyed spending time with our friends.
All the kids - notice there is only 1 boy at the party! Poor Billy! We really need to make friends with some more people who have boys!

The cake table complete with cake, cupcakes, and cookies. The cake was made by the bakery and I made the cupcakes and cookies.

The cupcakes.
The gift bags sitting on my new dining room furniture. You can see the boy bags on the back row and there were only 4 boys invited with 16 girls.

Katy and Emma - Katy was the photographer for the party and took all of these pictures and about 400 more! Thanks Kate!

Easter Egg Hunt - Take 2!

Today we went to the city Easter egg hunt at the park with Maggie, Nana, and Aunt Dana. Aren't the girls just precious in their outfits? Caroline is really becoming an egg hunting professional and shakes them when she finds them to see if they have anything in them. She also tends to only pick up the pink ones - because you know pink is her favorite color (and if you don't know, you only have to be around her for about an hour for her to tell you 50 times!). Again the weather was so nice (although Nana and Aunt Dana came home with a sunburn) and the girls had a great time hunting for eggs and playing in the park. Enjoy the pictures!