The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party Part Three

Public Holiday - relaxing day at home, so while the Big Guy was at a friends house and the Little Guy was asleep I had time to prepare the last post for the Little Guy's party details.

As the Little Guy's birthday is in the middle of summer we expect the weather to be warm and sunny - but this year although it was warm it definitely was not sunny! It rained the few days before the party and we had some light showers on the party day - so our plans to have some shade and tables set up on our grass area has to be scraped and instead all the tables and chairs for the children and adults plus the food table had to be set up in our screened sunroom. We were a little pushed for space but it worked out in the end. I hired a child's height trestle table and chairs from a local party hire for a grand total of $15.00! Money well spent as it is the perfect height for all the little guests to enjoy their lunch.

As the Little Guy is only 2 and most of his little guests were under the age of 5 I decided that structured party games was probably not a wise choice so instead we set up a blow up pool on the grass and the kids had a great time splashing about in it:

And the kids helped the Little Guy decorate his Puggy House cardboard cubbyhouse:

At the end of the party each little guest received a thank you gift bag:

On the front of the bag is a football jersey with each child's name and a number for their age - for the babies who have not yet turned one I used a star. I created this online at ImageChef and printed them on label sheets so I could simply peel and stick onto the front of the bag. For an added touch I secured a football brad to the bag once folded over. I bought these from Eyelet Outlet who ship to Australia very cheaply.

Inside the bag each little guest received:

(The baby bags contained the bath toys and rusks). The Moon Pies - which are similar to Wagon Wheels but much sweeter - are from USA Foods, the wooden games are from My Wooden Toys, and *I think* the mini frisbees, blowers and glasses are from Big W.

Well that rounds out my posts for the Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party. There are of course many more small details of the party which I have not specified so if you would like details of anything please let me know.

Work, Home & Play

Part 3 of the Little Guy's Birthday Party is still to come.

I've just finished week 2 of working full time and am feeling a little like this:

Photo source

All is going well but I am definitely finding it challenging to find the right balance of work, home and play and as such my blog has fallen down the priority list - but not off it!

I know that it will take the Big Guy and I a while to get into the swing of things but for now we are super excited that we have a fully toilet trained for daytime 2 year old - including naps!

The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party - Part Two

The food and drinks post!

The food table:

I (and my helpers!) made some sandwiches and wraps to serve as well as other yummy treats including mini iced donuts, chocolate and vanilla meringues, antipasto goodies, potato chips, marshmallows and cookies & cream hard candies. You should be able to spy the printable cupcake topper circles decorating the glass jars.

I iced the cake in a messy but simple icing and my wonderful sister Mrs R made the awesome little footballs to decorate with. Each football was actually a cake pop - yummy cake and icing mixed together and coated in chocolate! Each little guest was served one with their slice of cake and they went down a treat. The cake stands are from Sharnell Dollar Designs.

I decided I wanted a backdrop to the food table that was a little different so I (or should I say the Big Guy!) painted a piece of backing board with chalkboard paint and I drew with the help of the Big Guy a football play (i.e plan for the players where to run to and throw the ball). Also we pegged up a couple of recent photos of the Little Guy and also an end zone 'painted' with the Little Guy's name which I created here.

On the children's table (which will feature later) we served fruit, lamingtons and pretzels plus for lunch I made these little lunchboxes up for each little guest:

Inside was half a chicken sandwich, half a vegemite sandwich cut into the shape of a football, some puffy rice crackers and cheese. And I also used the cupcake topper circles again on drink cups for the children:

If you would like to know any further details about the food table or decorations let me know.

Next post will be all about the little guests - their table, party activities and thank you gift bags.

Lastly here is another gorgeous picture of the birthday boy testing out one of his presents:

The Little Guy's 2nd Birthday Party - Part One

Last Sunday was a cloudy sticky humid summers day and the day of the Little Guy's 2nd birthday party.

I decided to style the Little Guy's party with a football theme - Amercian football (the big guy used to play, the Little Guy's godfather plays and he LOVES playing with balls especially footballs!). I'd seen a few different types of 'event ticket' style invitations on the web and decided to create by own version in photoshop to send out to all the little guests:

The tickets were placed in a little pouch with some 'terms and conditions' on the reverse (i.e request to bring swimmers, sunscreen hat etc for playing in the pool).

For the decorations for the party I ordered customised party printables from The Two Savy Sisters which included amongst other things cupcake toppers (which I used to decorate a few different things), a banner (which I forgot to take a photo of), smalls signs which I placed on the kids table and a door sign:

Blog post Part Two will show the food table and other features of the party but for now here is a sneak peak at the cake:

The Week of Water

I had intended to blog this week about the Little Guy's birthday party which was held last weekend but the flooding and devastation experienced by the people of Queensland this week sidetracked those plans and it did not seem right to post about a cheerful happy event when those in Queensland and their friends and family are experiencing such heartache.

I've seen so many images of the destruction caused by the flooding and this one stopped my in my tracks:

photo from here

It looks like the scene from a Hollywood movie - but sadly this is just one of many photos showing the just what a huge amount of water can do.

And I think this photo is the most powerful I have seen:

photo from here

There's something about the way that soldier is holding the little girl that is so tender and beautiful.

I'll be back on the weekend with all the details of the Little Guy's birthday party.

Party Mode

A busy start to 2011 in this house - I've been in party mode for the Little Guy's 2nd birthday party which is this weekend and also the Big Guy and I have been making good use of the days the Little Guy is at daycare and have continued the massive declutter/donate/throwout/store in roof job in our house and I'm pleased to say we are now done! Nice way to start the year - everything in it's place especially since I start back at work fulltime this Monday.

I'm not one for making new year's resolutions but I did decide to do something for myself - something I think is going to be very important for me this year as a full time out of the house working mother and wife so have started a running program with a friend and hopefully in a couple of months I will be able to announce on here that I can run 5km non-stop!

Will be back next week with all the details of the Little Guy's Party.

P.S - My blog is looking very 'unpretty' at the moment - I am working on a re-vamp and will hopefully have it up soon.