My little angel turned 3. Now, that in and of itself may not sound like it would be a lot of work for mommy, but well, let's just say, I had fun, now I'm ready for the next project! You see, I wanted her birthday to be special, plus I didn't want to pay a lot for gifts even though I wanted to get her nice things. So many, many discounts later, I got her lots of toy story toys, and made, not bought, MADE her a barbie camper, totally from scratch. That project I began in August. I finished it last week. It is the Barbie Airstream (the camper we usually use is the Bambi, so this works:) However, the last two days, watching Barbie and company enjoy it has made all that work worth it. At this time however I do not have a picture, but I guess it is just in her bedroom I could go take one...maybe tomorrow:) So anyway, since all of her friends are here playing five days a week, her friend party had to be something really special....and I wasn't brave enough to take them anywhere so it had to be in the same place we play every day. My newfound pinterest addiction added to the party ideas, and before long I had planned a toy story spectacular---which would have been better outside had it not been rainy and cold. So inside it was.....
The claw game! Remember Pizza Planet where Buzz and Woody got pulled out of the machine by "THE CLAW"? We recreated this with some salad tongs and fruit snacks for prizes. I attempted to make aliens, and currently that is the only major failure listed on my to do list. Its not that I didnt try, its that my fleece aliens weren't agreeable and finally had to be given up on!
My favorite of the party games/decorations....The Potatoheads, Mr and Mrs, as pinata's. Strange... maybe, fun...definitely! As you can tell by the strings, the Mrs was empty, Mr. was loaded with goodies.
Two games here, a Bullseye--stick pony rodeo (yep made the stick ponies) and a sunnyside donation box bean bag toss. I had found some cute toy story fabric at Hancocks and cut out the characters and made bean bags. The ponies were a little yarn, a little ribbon, a couple pieces of felt, and some dowel rods....add a little sewing, hot glue and polyfil and there were magically ten horses!
The cake table. I made treat boxes which had their hats, a jessie hairbow, party blowers, bags for collecting candy, and a couple toy story paper things in them. Add in a few decorations and we were ready for the party to begin.
To keep them calm and get them in the spirit before the party, we turned on none other than TOY STORY. I think it was the third one, can't really tell for sure....she loves them all. And yes, after the picture I did make them scoot back from the tv a little.
The party began with discovering all the goodies in the boxes. The hairbows were a hit!
Of course the oldest child there was Emily (other than my nephews and they didnt want ot wear the bows) and so they all had to have a little help putting in bows. Thank goodness for good neighbors helping out!
She definitely figured out the blowers.
The claw game was lots of fun! Of course we blame inheritance on her tongue sticking out.
Emily surveying the party scene
More fun with the blowers.
You can see the hairbows here, didnt they turn out cute?
Ok, so the cupcakes were the color of mr. Potatohead and they were given eyes, nose and mouths to decorate them with before eating. I think they just ate:)
The pinata was a hit, especially with my nephews. Of course had they not been here we might still be swinging at the poor potato!
Emily had some pretty good swings. So did a couple of the other girls, but ultimately Blaine broke it.
But for some guests, partying was exhausting (they got to sleep, but this was definitely how I felt!)
Emily had to help me explain the game and hold up the bean bag board. The only flaw to this game was I was letting them throw things which they thought was cool, however at one point a little shoe came hurdling at me! And then we ate lunch and Happy Day party number 1 was over and it was time to prepare for partying with family! (A much calmer group generally speaking)
They got the special train cake. It took me less time to decorate than it took the cardinals to win game 7 of the world series! And Emily helped. See those pink cookies there, she shoved them in for me!
Here's the cake table. Minus a few things I added on later.
And since Mrs. Potatohead survived the first party she got to come check out the second one:)
We began with gifts. She now understands what it means when someone says, "present". My child has WAY too many toys now. But not a pair of toy story panties that I bought in August. I wonder where I put those....
We had dinner and then it was time for cake.
She was a little bit of a showoff.
And she didnt like having to wait while we sang to blow out the candles.....
There she blows!
If you could tell what was going on in her mind, it was "Do it again" So we relit the candles, resang happy birthday and she blew out the candles again. She might have repeated that scenario all night had I let her! Oh and the putting ice cream in muffin tins before the party was a brilliant idea, just dont overflow them or they are nearly impossible to get out. The not stuck (ones that didnt overflow) worked great!
Then the showing off REALLY kicked in to high gear.
I finally let her play with the cake decorations, which Woody had broken, but was fixed with some super glue, however I emailed disney about it and they are sending me a gift card worth much more than I paid for the decoartions, so I have to say lots of nice good things about Disney!
Cousin Rachel's birthday was on Wednesday so she put on a party hat too for the pictures.
Emily hasn't quite figured out how to show three yet on her fingers.
And after all the commotion it was time to PLAY! and wear every bit of clothing she got. Finally this mornign she got to ride her scooter and watch beauty and the beast. A great birthday, and now looking back I see why I feel a little tired this week. Oh and the tooth extraction in the middle of all this might have something to do with it (but yes, my friends, my tooth (or lack of) feels MUCH better than it did last week! Actually it feels better than it has for most of the last year). And so, another birthday is behind us.....now, where to put all those toys???
