3 Years Old: Happy Birthday!

Today, my baby girl is officially 3. We celebrated yesterday with a huge party and spent today with a quiet and restful celebration with just the 3 of us. A little birthday fairy took the party decorations from the park and decorated the house.



Yes, there were more tulle puff balls for decor. I also had made a tulle garland that was hung at the park gazebo as well.



The birthday fairy also had balloons all over the living room floor. That was a busy fairy the night after a big party.



Baby Bear woke up and went into the living room. From the bedroom, daddy and I heard her say "Wow, it's so beautiful." Then she ran into our room and dragged me out to see.





 

She recognized the banner from the party at the park and the other decor. She wanted to wear her princess dress again. And this was all before 8am.



We finally got ourselves up and ready for breakfast. With her tiara.



Baby Bear's birthday breakfast request: steak and eggs. Yup, that is my girl. Basically, we shared steak and eggs and she ate half of my steak. I've heard from my parents that I was the same way. After breakfast we headed home to open her birthday presents.

She received quite a loot.



She was so excited about each and every gift. That is the truth, everything was so great to her. She would say "wow, that is so beautiful." or "oh look how cute." She would "read" the cards, it was so cute to watch her and her reactions to everything.











My parents gave her my old tutu. the yellow tattered top went along wiht my tutu from one of my dance recitals when I was a little girl. I started to cry when I saw that. I couldn't believe we still had that. I thought I had gotten rid of it long ago.



What a wonderful day. Baby Bear really enjoyed her birthday. It was a very special birthday weekend indeed.

Princess Party 2012

The big day was finally here. Baby Bear was so excited, she had been talking about her party all week and couldn't wait. Just after she woke up that morning she was ready to go in her princess dress. She had been waiting all week to be able to wear her special princess dress. She would look at her dress on the hanger and not ask to wear it. She knew it was for her special day and she was waiting. She would ask to hold the dress up to her so she could look at herself in the mirror, but she wanted to wait to put it on for the real deal. We it was finally that day.

 

She is truly my princess. So sweet. I dropped her off at Grandma's house in the morning so that Daddy and I could get ready for the party. On the way there, I told her that we would get ready for her party. She told me, "Mommy, I can help if you want. Grandma and I can help." Such a kind girl.

I dropped off supplies at the park while daddy and our neighbor, Shawn began to bbq the 30 lbs of tri-tip. Then I ran around to pick up the cake and balloons drop the cake off at home, then back to the park to decorate. Then back home to pick up the salads just before the party would start.

It was a busy day and we didn't get a whole lot of pictures taken. I am thankful for my friend, Becki Cloud, who was there to take pictures. When I get those pictures I will post more pics. I thought everything looked great. I didn't go too over board with decorating. I guess that is the good thing about having it at a park, you are limited and I did want to keep things fairly simple. I was very happy with how it all turned out.

Our chef cooked up a storm.



There was more than enough food.



I think everyone enjoyed the spread.



We had just a few people. I don't think we know how to throw a small party, LOL. We had 100 people at the party. It was great.






We had a craft table for the kids to decorate their own tiaras (for girls) and crowns (for boys).



The playground was a hit with kids of all ages and kept them very busy.





Baby Bear enjoyed having all her friends there. Friends from daycare, friends from school, and many other friends.



All the kids were so busy playing, we had to round them all up for cake. (A snafu happened with the cake. I had ordered the cake from Costco and instead of checking "princess crown" I accidentally checked off "clown." When I saw the cake I was so upset with myself. My other cake was the pink and purple flowers, which was fine. I looked and they had another pink and yellow flower cake, so I grabbed that since it was the best that they had to go with our colors and I needed two cakes. The clown just didn't fit with the theme. I added a little tiara and wand to the pink and purple cake and some flags that I had made for the brownies that I never baked at the very last minute. It all worked out and Baby Bear was so happy about the tiara and wand on the cake that it was perfect. She was happy and that is all that mattered. She loved it and that made it perfect.)



The kids were ready for some yummy cake and they didn't care or know that the pink and yellow cake didn't match everything else, LOL.



At her 2nd birthday party, she clinged on to me the entire time. I pretty much had to carry her for the entire party and she barely played on the playground. How a year changes things. She was running around, every now and then I had to look around to see where she had gone off to. She was having a blast playing with all her friends on the playground only coming back to check in with me when she needed something to drink.

 

We are so blessed to have so many people who love and care about Baby Bear. Thank you to everyone who was a part of this special royal celebration. Our little princess really is loved by so many.

Baby Bear had a great time at her party. She even told me "This is the best party ever." That made all the hard work so worth it.

Party Prepping 2012

It has been a busy birthday weekend for Baby Bear. It has been some work prepping for it all for Mama Bear, which has put me behind with all the blogging. I had been planning and prepping for a few months now, doing things here and there but it all came down to those last couple of days. I took a couple of days off the end of last week so that I could prep for the big birthday party (and big is an understatement). Thursday, I spent the day running errands around town. Costco, grocery store, mall, party store, etc. I was going non-stop, but I did fit in yoga and a workout.

Friday I started the day with a yoga class to get myself balanced and focused for the weekend ahead. I spent the rest of the day cooking.



I made 6 batches of pasta salad and 6 batches of bean salad. Easy recipes to make, but time consuming with all the chopping that had to be done. I had the help of my handy dandy chopper. I love this chopper.

Between the two salads I used 6 boxes of pasta, 9 tomatoes, 15 bell peppers, 6 red onions, 6 cans of pinto beans, 12 cans of black beans, 48 oz of corn, 2 bunches of cilantro, 1 1/2 cups of olive oil, 2 garlic cloves, 5 bottles of dressing, 6 limes, 6 cans of sliced olives, and a lot of salt and pepper. It was a lot of food, but I had to prepare enough food for about 100 people. We had plenty and food left over, which was great.

I had intended to bake brownies as well, but after all that I was beat and just didn't want to cook any more. It was the best decision I made. We had cake and that was more than enough.

Friday evening I packed up the Suburban with everything that was not perishable. The back of the Suburban was packed. We had quite a bit to bring to the park.

The centerpieces for the tables packed up and ready for transport.



The centerpieces consisted of princess tulle wands that I made for all the little princesses coming to the party. They served two purposes, a party favor and a centerpiece. I wrapped some empty oatmeal containers to serve as vases and added my design to keep with the theme of the party. I had spent the last month and half making these wands and made a total of 28 tulle wands. Daddy thought I was crazy for spending every night on these things but, they were just so cute that I had to do it. I ended up using 220 yards of tulle, 70 yards of ribbon, and 3 sticks of hot glue sticks. I thought they turned out great. (Actually someone who was driving by the park asked about the centerpieces before the party started, they wanted to know where we got them. Daddy proudly told them that I made them.)



The rest of the party favors were wrapped up (I had spent the week before on these) and ready to be boxed up for transport. Since we decided not to do a pinata, I wanted to make sure the kids still got their candy fix (It was actually a wise decision not to do the pinata since there was really no where to do it at the park). Candy wrapped in pink for the girls and purple for the boys (there are actually more purple ones already in the box) a total of 48 ready to go. I was expecting 38 kids, but had extra on hand just in case.



The little girls got a little tiara ring along with their candy.



Boxed and ready to go.


 

We also cleaned the house up Friday evening, so that we could come home after the party to a relatively clean house. By 9:30pm, my truck was packed up, the house was clean, and I was able to rest up for the big party on Saturday. Not too bad. I sure was glad that I took those days off to prep. I was exhausted so rest was definitely welcomed since I had been going non-stop for days.