So my Coco Bear is turning three… THREE?!?! I cannot believe how time has just flown by. It seems like just yesterday that I was watching him on the teeter-totter with Gavin at his first birthday party.

This year I was really torn. I considered having his party at Chuck E. Cheese but I decided to hold off for one more year, when he can actually reach the games without standing on his tippee-toes. I kept hearing about this dinosaur venue located in the Laguna Hills Mall, so I did some research. Not only was it age appropriate but what little boy doesn’t LOVE dinosaurs?

Wonder of Dinosaurs (www.wonderofdinosaurs.com) had a ton of things to do. They had a dinosaur exhibit (which was laid out pretty well and was more informative than I expected), dinosaur themed bounce houses, mini golf, a dinosaur ride (where you got to sit on the back of a HUGE dinosaur while it ROARED loudly), dinosaur mazes,  coloring areas with crayons and coloring pages, and a zoomer (which was basically a stuffed dinosaur motorized scooter). We even got to uncover some fossils! The price wasn’t too bad (at $10 a person, with a 20 person minimum) and the party area was perfect. The only thing that wasn’t there was food, which a couple big Costco pizzas and snacks quickly fixed.

 

Here’s a little clip from the dinosaur ride… sorry my Asian genes failed me and I’m not the best videographer.

I found these great dinosaur tails and hats from oriental trading company – both adults and kids enjoyed them. I also ordered some huge dinosaur balloons from Canada (which were only $3 a piece), and Jeremy had a friend that had a helium tank that we borrowed. They were a hit and everyone got to take a balloon home with them at the end of the party.

This party didn’t require any entertaining. Everyone ran around and had a great time. It was big enough for a good amount of bouncers, but also small enough to walk around and grab everyone for the birthday song (which I thankfully remembered to do this year).

My mom had been practicing the birthday song with Keaton for weeks (singing and blowing out the candles at the appropriate time) but when it was finally time, he just sat there… taking it all in, with his tongue hanging out and eyes big with amazement. When the song ended he just sat there until someone screamed “blow out your candles!!” in which he forgot that cake was soft and mushy, and placed his hands right into it to leverage himself up to get to the candles.  Then he tried to put the fire out by grabbing them, while people gasped and screamed “NOOOO!!! Don’t touch the candles!”  It was quite a sight and made for a great video. (Note* for whatever reason this video doesn’t work in Internet Explorer – try Google Chrome!)

The only thing that I would change would be that I’d bring a boy or a big moving dolly. My poor mom and I set everything up by ourselves without one… (until my mom got creative and stole a cart from a janitors storage area ( don’t worry we gave it back!). Also, carrying 8 ginormous balloons (during a massive southern California wind storm) wasn’t the easiest of tasks, but luckily they all of them made it upstairs.

The party was a blast. Keaton keeps asking if we can “go back to my dinosaur party…”. I think this was a perfect place for a three year old party. It provided just enough entertainment for a couple hours and I’m pretty sure every kid that attended slept on the way home. It was such a great day…. Coco’s gonna be three in a couple days. I’m still in shock!

Oh ya… and last minute I made some shirts to match the one that I ordered Coco off of Etsy. Of course they didn’t come out half as good as his, but they were cute regardless.

 

 

 

 

 

Our little “Baby Ryan” celebrated her 1st birthday today. Although her first birthday wasn’t as over the top as Keaton’s first birthday (which included livestock roaming around our backyard and pony rides), a lot of preparation still went into making her party a complete success.

I spent months  weeding out the possible party themes, but after seeing a customized Sesame Street sign on Pinterest, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

The custom sign was the first thing we focused on, since I needed the picture for her birthday invite. Etsy had the custom sesame street sign on sale for $59 – not a bad deal until I saw the $30 shipping fee (I kid you not!). A quick trip to home depot paired with a handy husband brought the final cost of this project to $20. I was debating on painting the letters myself, but my hubby suggested printing out the letters and mod podging them to the sign. Quick, easy and painless – the sign was complete in 2 days time.

Next I created her birthday invite. I found a template I liked on Etsy and recreated and customized it. I designed the back of the invite to look like one of those chalk boards that lists all the fun facts about the baby. After it was complete, I was able to find a Groupon to print 50 double sided 5×7 postcards for $20! Although we were only expecting 25 people you can’t beat the $20 price tag. They came out beautifully.

I spent A LOT of my lunch breaks and after bed time hours on all the tiny details of Ryan’s party. From custom crayon packages, to tissue paper pom-pom character heads, to cookie monster face Chips Ahoy cookie packages… this party did not miss a deet. Emma even chipped in by creating a delectable primary colored sugar popcorn.  Mini ducks floated in a blue punch (tying in the well known Sesame Street Rubber Ducky song) while hand made chocolate chip cookies (made out of felt) were sprinkled behind a giant cookie monster balloon. There were bubble wands tied with tulle, themed sippy cups (for the infants) and juice box holders (for the toddlers). If I could redo one thing, I would NOT have bought the whistles. They were cute…until the toddlers decided to blow them for the entire duration of the party.

For every one of our parties, I like to do something unique or special. For Keaton’s 1st birthday, I rented  farm animals. For this party, I thought really hard about all the things that little kids go apes over. The ice cream truck came to mind, but almost every rentable truck / vendor was waaaay to expensive for our low key party. One day I was fortunate enough to get referred to a little family owned ice cream truck. It was totally in budget (under $100!) not to mention a fun (and festive) alternative to the traditional cake.

Overall, everyone had a great time. Family and our closest friends joined us in the celebration of our little’s first year of life. Baby Ryan (in true Baby Ryan fashion) was smiling and happy the entire party. Keaton and Gavin assisted with the opening of presents (while Ryan sat nearby eating the paper). The birthday song was sung, and Baby Ryan stared with amusement while Keaton waited anxiously to blow out her candles. The trampoline was put to good use, friends reconnected outdoors in the sun, while basketball played to the walls indoors. Toddler giggles were sprinkled throughout while bubbles floated through the air. Our Big Bird balloon’s head disconnected from his body and then the entire balloon flew to heaven (while Keaton try to hold in his tears). Memories were made. It was a great day.

 

Before I started planning Keaton’s 2nd party, I knew I had to tone it down a little, since Ryan would only be a month old, and my C-section wounds wouldn’t be up for any extreme birthday crafting. I decided to have the party off-site (to save me from the hours of clean-up) at the Santa Ana Zoo. It was pretty affordable. Adult were around $8 per person and kids under the age of 3 were free. We had visited the zoo multiple times so I had scoped out all the party areas and had a specific one in mind. It was shady and somewhat secluded (which I liked, bc I didn’t want zoo trespassers crashing our party).

The zoo theme was fun and easy to plan. A party isn’t a party without some kind of themed hat to wear, so I ordered some zoo keeper/safari hats (and added a custom “Keaton’s Birthday”  sticker for flare). The kids always love hats and it always makes for great pictures.

I wanted to do some kind of snack table and since Keaton LOVES donuts,  I thought why not have a donut bar? DK Donuts in Tustin always has very colorful and kid desired looking donuts so I placed an order for 4 dozen donuts and called it a day. Not only was it cost effective but it ended up being super cute and all the kids (and some adults) went apes over it. I put some carafes filled with regular and chocolate milk on ice and added some crazy colorful straws. I also made tiny bags of cookies with dip to take home later (which were basically just animal crackers and frosting which I put in tiny to-go cups and sprinkled with colorful sprinkles). I was also lucky enough to find a big ape in the clearance section of Toys R Us for $15 – I just couldn’t pass him up and as you can see below, he really added to the appeal.

The zoo party package included renting the actual party space, admission AND enough tickets for everyone to ride both the carousel and the train. Unfortunately the carousel was closed, but the kids didn’t seem to notice. There’s a huge play area for the kids to play in and a lot of other extra things to climb on and explore like a broken down safari jeep which Keaton and Gavin played in for a good amount of time.

I also made “Adopt a Monkey” baskets for the kids to take home with them. I twist-tied the monkeys to the baskets (which I found on clearance after Easter and paid $0.25 for each one!) and gave them names. At the bottom of the basket I included a small blanket (made out of felt) and a bag of monkey food (which was just a package of Runts).

I had everyone eat when they first arrived (since we only had the party space for two hours). Then everyone kind of branched off and did their own thing.  I totally FAILED though and forgot to get everyone to sing Happy Birthday to Keaton, but he’s so little he didn’t notice.

Overall the party was a success. The only obstacle we ran into was transporting all the party supplies. We ended up renting a big yellow wagon (pictured below) for $10. It was helpful and the kids enjoyed riding around in it. Lots of smiles, perfect weather and a very happy birthday boy. Can’t wait for next years celebration.

 

I’m going to be honest…one of the many reasons why I couldn’t wait to have a baby was so that I could plan a birthday party that was for someone besides myself. Judge if you must, but I already had a “Birthday Party” Pinterest board created waaaay before Keaton was conceived, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally get to put it all together.

Out of all the themes I went back and forth on, Western theme seemed to be the one with the most possibilities. I knew I wanted to do something extreme, but seeing that my one year old wasn’t close to walking, the swapmeet sized bouncer was out of the question. So I  kept it simple and just rented some farm animals – you know the basics…pony, pig and goat. This party was already off to a great start!

I wanted this party to be more than exceptional, so I had to bring the big guns in – my mom. God has definitely blessed this woman with a ton of creative talent and I was about to put her gift to great use. For starters I definitely needed some ponies on a stick. Sure, I could’ve easily bought some generic ponies on a stick, but they wouldn’t come close to what I knew my mom was capable of making. Her ponies were vibrant in color and unique and she proudly stated that each of them had “personality!” – something the store bought ponies lacked. The kids were ecstatic over these ponies. It was fun to see which pony they decided to choose.

Like I mentioned the cowboy theme seemed to have endless Pinterest potential and I really had fun recreating a lot of Pins. Of course I had to set the scene with the birthday boy’s name made out of rope. We had to have a wood palette w/ decorations and burlap bunting hanging from it, and we definitely needed some Cowboy hats and scarves. I dressed old school milk bottles with bandanas and topped them off with brown striped paper straws and used Keaton’s wagon as our drink cooler.

I know this was just a party for a one year old, but you can’t have a party without games… so being consistent with the theme, I wrapped a $0.99 hula hoop with bandana print fabric and drug out Keaton’s rocking horse for a quick game of lasso the pony. Easy enough for the kids to master.

I also had a baby pool laying around, so I went to Home Depot and purchased three 15 lb bags of sand ($3 each) and bag of tiny rocks from a craft store. I spray painted the rocks and then combined the sand, rocks, and a little bit of water to form a “river” where the kids could pan for gold. I also bought a 12 pack of miniature pie pans from the $0.99 store and poked holes in the bottom (to allow the water to drain). This game was a big hit with both the kids and the adults.

I love photo props/booths so I cut a frame out of cardboard, threw some brown paint on it and printed out some western themed letters that I ended up just gluing on.  It wasn’t the prettiest thing that I created, but it served its purpose.

Overall, the party was a huge success. Friends and family chatted at cow print covered tables, livestock roamed freely, and kids showered the pony with endless pets and carrots. The boot shaped piñata ironically got stomped opened and then worn… This party was definitely one for the books.