Livi's 1st birthday

Here are a few pictures from Olivia's 1st birthday. When she woke up from her nap everyone was already at our house and she just looked around amazed. She loved her smash cake.. the first few bites were cautious and then when she tasted s-u-g-a-r she dove right in and was covered. I tried to take it away because I thought she would go into sugar shock but Miss Priss hastily grabbed it with both hands. We enjoyed seeing our family and friends and celebrating Olivia's 1st year of life. Happy birthday Livi Jane.... we've enjoyed every minute of this first year and are looking forward to watching your little personality develop as you grow. 

1st birthday poster

I ordered this from ETSY for Olivia's first birthday and I thought it turned out super cute! It was 20 bucks.. not bad at all!

Eli's Mickey party

There was no question on what theme of party to have for Eli's 3rd birthday because he loves some Mickey Mouse! Last year I was hugely pregnant and we moved into our new house on his birthday weekend so he didn't have a party. I made up for it this year! I had all sorts of grandiose ideas, thanks to Pinterest, but only a few materialized. Here are a few things we did:

I ordered a Mickey mascot costume several months ago and Isaac graciously agreed to play the part. On some purchases it was necessary not to tell the hubs about it until they arrived, and this is one of those! Mickey was a hit and Isaac did a great job. The kids, especially Eli thought Mickey was great.  Eli was more enthralled with Mickey than the presents. He rubbed Mickey's head and said "I love you Mickey Mouse!" Sidebar.. If anyone needs a Mickey costume for rent send them my way!

Most of the decorations were homemade. I made a homemade wreath...and I'm not crafty. I wrapped a green foam circle with yellow polka dot ribbon, and used two black paper birthday plates to cover the foam circles for ears. I finished it with coordinating ribbon as a hanger. The black paper lanterns and tissue paper flowers came from Amazon and I used wrapping paper and scrapbook paper as a table runner. The banners by created by cutting scrapbook paper into triangles and then hot gluing ribbon on. My sweet sister-in-law, Sonja and niece, Allie helped with one as well. My other sister in law, Jan helped me clean house and my mom kept the kids on Friday so we could get ready. It was a family effort!

All the printables were made on my computer. I downloaded free Mickey images and a Disney font to make the food signs, treat tags, and welcome sign and printed them on card stock. I found a 4$ frame at Walmart to frame Eli's welcome sign.

Eli and Olivia's Mickey shirts came from ETSY and we will reuse them this summer when we head to Disney World for a week. 

We had to have a hot dog bar to go with Mickey's theme song. The old fashioned hotdog roller came from Walmart and I ordered the hot dog holders, ketchup, and mustard servers from Amazon. I found red buckets from the dollar store and glued white circles on to hold the plasticware. The Le-Minnie-Aid idea came from Pinterest and was easy to make out of card stock.

Eli's cake idea came from Pinterest and was made by My Local Bakery in Morganton. The flavor was cookies and creme with chocolate icing....yum! I had a few extra cupcakes made at our local grocery store with black and white icing and then bought candy chips to use as ears.

I ordered the balloons from Amazon.. they were super cute... red, white, and black with white polka dots. The Mickey air walker balloon was taller than Eli and the kids had fun dancing and punching Mickey.

Isaac helped me make the treat bags.. he cut out the white circles. We used brown paper bags and added the card stock and tags. I filled the bags with bubbles, Mickey Ears, Mickey cups and then after the kids broke the piñata we added candy and small toys as well. 

Thankfully it didn't rain and we put up our inflatable outside near the play yard. Of course inflatables are always a kid favorite. We've had our inflatable since Eli's 1st birthday and it's seen a lot of use. Josh's new play-yard was up just in time as well