juliet turns three - a rainbow princess party

Our big girl is three. Just typing this out triggers all kinds of crazy (somewhat sappy) emotions, but the words just aren't coming. We are so blessed. Juliet is pure joy. So very thankful ... and I'm tearing up.

Man, am I an over emotional pregnant lady or what?

Our celebrations were low key. Yes, I said celebrations. We celebrated twice cause Aunt Dan, Uncle David, and Aunt Deb were going out of town for a mission trip ... and who doesn't want to open presents and be the center of attention for two parties!?

Opening a few gifts at party #1.

My mom and I scored some great princess stuff at a local JBF sale and that's all been a big hit. See those Belle shoes? The heels light up. And they were $3!!

The second celebration was themed a Rainbow Princess Party. I kind of made it up, but I think it turned out fabulously and most importantly Juliet loved it. Juliet had 2 requests for her birthday - a princess cake and a bounce house. On my quest to fulfill the first request, I came across a lot of pink princess cakes. Which are fine and all ... maybe I am just not the biggest fan of pink. I don't know ...

But then I found this cake on Pinterest.

Source: thecraftymamablog.blogspot.com via Dawn on Pinterest

AMAZING right? It's ok to drool :)

I had to make this cake ... but Juliet's request was for a princess cake.

Hmmmm ...

princess + rainbow = rainbow princess!

Here's how Juliet's cake turned out.

The outside (crown made of sparkly craft foam).

The inside (clearly I am not a food photographer).



If you want to make a rainbow cake, I would definitely recommend going to Crafty Mama's blog (cake pictured above) and read all her tips. For mine, I used this recipe for the cake and this basic butter cream frosting recipe from Martha Stewart. The cake is not hard to make, but I would definitely say it's a 2 day project!

To date, I have been able to throw pretty no fuss parties for the girls. I've enjoyed keeping the parties on the small side with some special touches that don't break the bank. In fact, I think I like the challenge of creating big impact decorations on little to no budget! For this year, our rainbow princess party wouldn't have been complete without a big ol' rainbow and of course a castle for our birthday princess!

The rainbow was HUGE and if I'd known how much work it was going to be, I might not have ever started it. Ha! It's made of hundreds (literally) of coffee filters dyed with food coloring/water. It was a fun project. Just time consuming. The girls loved to watch the rainbow grow day by day and it was such a fun addition to the room I was sad to take it down!

I need to find some better photos of the rainbow and upload them ...

The castle is just paint on a big roll of brown packing paper with tissue pom poms for clouds. Lots and lots of tape on the wall for this project :)

Blowing out the candles.

This picture looks innocent enough ...

Until you see this one ;)

Yummy.

Some other pictures from the party.

Eating brunch (before eating cake of course!).

Little princess.

Swinging outside.

Presents!

I somehow managed not to take pictures the day of the party of Juliet's other birthday request - a bounce house. But, that's ok because I have other pictures! Rather than renting a bounce house we opted to buy a little one and I must say that it's a decision I don't regret!

It fits in our living room and playroom and the girls LOVE it. It's been a fun inside activity with all the hot weather we've been having. We've used it a ton so far and it seems really durable ... and did I mention the girls love it?!

Big thanks to Aunt Allie for doing all the bounce house research :)

Well that about covers it. She's three and so incredibly grown up.

Love you big girl.

a buzzing first birthday party

A bit of blogging catch up to do ...



Starting with little Beetles' first birthday party. I don't know if I've ever explained why we call Corinne by the nick name Beetles on this blog. When we brought Corinne home from the hospital at 1 week old to meet her big sister, Juliet's verbal skills were good for a 17 month old, but still limited. So, she called her new sister "B" - J speak for baby - and it stuck. B has evolved and changed over time, first to Bee-Duh-Lee and now to Beetles. I call her by her nick names so much sometimes it feels funny when I actually use her name! Juliet can say Corinne now as well. She says it really cute ;)

We had a small family party for Corinne's first birthday. A bee themed party for our little B. Saturday morning brunch. No formal invitations. Not a lot of fuss. The type of party where wear your husband's pajama pants and no one cares. It was awesome :)

My focus for the party theme and decorations was simply to get some good pictures of Corinne; like something I might actually frame if I managed to take a picture that was in focus. I had seen on Annalea's blog what she did for her son's first birthday party using bed sheets for a photo backdrop, but didn't have a cute one on hand. I oped to use construction paper to make our beehive backdrop. The banner is paper doilies and more of the construction paper. Used my cricut to cut the letters.



Juliet and I made the cupcakes for the party. I have recently mastered the art of making my own icing so saw this as a perfect opportunity to whip up a batch in yellow! The cupcake toppers are just stickers from the scrapbook isle at Michaels stuck on toothpicks.

Now for our little B's outfit! I had a black and white tutu I'd made for Juliet's one year pictures I paired with some yellow leggings and a black shirt I put on a B on with no sew Heat'n Bond. I thought about changing out the white on the tutu with yellow, but decided not to. I kind of like a less literal interpretation of things (e.g. Juliet's Halloween monkey costume). The antenna were spray painted dollar store headbands (7 for $1) with a pipe cleaner wrapped around the middle.



Everyone got a pair :)



She got lots of fun presents, but probably would have been just as content with grandma's cell phone and fun yellow present filler :)





And yes, that's what Juliet wore during the party!

So we ate, opened presents, and sang to our big one year old birthday girl! Here is she soaking up her birthday song ... and the fact that she's sitting on our dining room table with her entire family staring at her :)



And here she is once she'd gotten a taste of my icing!



The scrapbook paper flowers provided some fun entertainment too!

I loved the cake pictures we had taken of Juliet by an actual professional, but I have to say that I love these too! No, they aren't perfect; but they are her in the actual moment and I love that about them.

It was a perfect birthday party for our sweet little B who has brought us so much joy over the last year that I simply can't imagine how we ever survived without her!! And considering I spent about $20 (not including breakfast food costs), I think I did pretty darn good!

You can see the rest of the pictures I took here.