My youngest daughter's birthday is at the end of the month. Because her birthday is so close to Halloween, she's having a Halloween themed party. It's hard to come up with unique ideas but this year I think I've come up with the perfect activity/craft that also serves as a party favor... a Halloween witch's brew necklace! I told my daughter that we were going to make a "potion necklace" for her birthday but I didn't exactly tell her what the potion would do. I made an example of what the necklace would look like and she loved it! A bottle of "Slime of a Frog" and "Unicorn Dander". But that wasn't the end... I had her uncork both bottles and pour the "Slime of a Frog" into the "Unicorn Dander". I wish I would have gotten her and her sister's reaction on video! They thought it was "so cool!". I can't wait for the birthday party guests to make and then use this Halloween Witch's Brew Necklace! I hope their reaction is as fun as my daughters'. In … [Read more...]
Mystery Birthday Party with Dramatic Fanatic
Nutty's 8th birthday was a little over a month ago. When we were planning her birthday party we had a hard time trying to figure out what to do. After all, it's hard to top a horseback riding party and a camping party. I'm not sure where she got the idea from, but she decided she wanted a mystery party. I searched the internet high and low trying to figure out how to hold a mystery party for a bunch of 7-9 year old girls and came across Dramatic Fanatic® Downloadable Mystery Parties for Kids. Nutty and I both agreed it looked interesting and were excited when they said "yes" to a review from us! After much debate, Nutty decided to do the Fairy Tale Mystery which included a mystery during a fairy tale fashion show. Nutty carefully chose each of her friends to play a character based on their personality and when the invites went out, each friend was asked to dress as their character. Even I got dressed up as the host of the fashion show! It was so fun to watch each girl … [Read more...]
Smore’s Cake
Last week I wrote a post about Nutty's camping birthday party. In that post I told you that her giant smore's cake needed a post of it's own. Now you'll know why... As I said in my previous post, this cake took me two days to make, was a little hard, and wasn't very practical but it looked awesome and the girls loved it. The real instructions on how to make this giant smore's cake can be found on Not Just A Housewife. I won't steel her post. I will, however, tell you how making my cake went... Unlike the original cake, I started out making two vanilla cakes. I surprised myself on how well they turned out (i.e. I got them out of the pan without ruining them). I also surprised myself on how I was able to level them (no photo, sorry). Between my cake layers I put marshmallow fluff creme. This is where my first problems came in. The chocolate chips melted just fine but I quickly realized I didn't have a cookie sheet quite as large as I wanted. Oh well, my round pizza sheet … [Read more...]
Camping Birthday Party Ideas + FREE Printable
Nutty's 7th birthday was last week. I don't know why, but she insisted on having a camping themed birthday and having a sleepover. So...because I'm such a great mom, we had a campover birthday. Twelve girls total (including Nutty and Tottie) with six of them camping overnight in a tent in our back yard. What was I thinking?! I searched all over Pinterest for ideas for her party but I'm not one to go way overboard with decor and things. I just wanted ideas... It started with Nutty's invitations. She really liked this invitation. Though the site somewhat told you how to make them, the author of the post admits she had a hard time coming up with an appropriate pattern. I did some more searching and couldn't come up with one either. After over an hour of cutting, measuring, re-cutting, folding, etc, I finally came up with my own pattern. To save our lovely readers some time, I thought I'd actually share my pattern with you so you can easily make your own tent invitations! … [Read more...]
Birthdays with “The Twin Factor”
More often than not I am asked about my twins and how alike they really are. In a factual sense of the term they are twins: they were born on the same day, from the same mother and they shared the womb. But beyond that they really are quite different (besides the obvious that they are different genders). They enjoy each others company and they are pretty protective of each other, which I think is adorable, and they are generally a terrific two-some. For the first 4 years of their lives I was able to squeak in my own personal preference for "twin-ness" by hosting their birthday parties with themes (prince and princess, monkeys, spring theme and last year was all about the number four). This year, however, it slapped me in the face when it came to their differences. I will admit my heart was a little broken when I realized what was occurring, they were asserting themselves in their own right. They are in different pre-school classrooms this year and therefore they each got to pick … [Read more...]
Hosting a Winter ONEderland Party
Planning birthday parties is one of my favorite things to do! With 4 kids I get the chance to get creative every couple of months (tee hee hee). This past month my baby boy turned ONE! I threw him a Winter ONEderland Party. I thought this party turned out so cute that I'd share it with you so that you too could be inspired! The first, and most important part of the party is the cake....of course! It just so happens that our local bakery offers a FREE "smash cake" for their 1st birthdays. Thanks to them I didn't have to pull out the pans and make one, yay! Check with your local bakery to see if they offer the same. (Note- I didn't blot out my sons name because it would have taken a long time to do...this will be the only post in which I will share his name). I asked them to add blue and white dots to the cake to coordinate with the colors. I also had them make a "winter- themed" sheet cake for our party guests. My lovely friend made the gorgeous fondant igloo, penguins, and polar … [Read more...]
