Faith's Party: Decorations

I can't tell ya how much fun I had making decorations for this party! I got so caught up in that I didn't really make time for Easter stuff. Easter.... *sigh* I'm a little too pooped to think about that right now.

There were a TON of decorations and I'm going to include links to where I was inspired and for the tutorials if any of you would like to ever use these ideas. All I can say is Google is my bestest friend, how else would I come up with these ideas?! ;) My main source of inspiration came from Here, Here, Here, and Here.

Faith's sign we put up outside. The letters I printed in color using THIS font and then cut them out and glued onto poster paper. You can get a huge roll of this at Walmart for $7! For the peppermints, I cut them out with my Cricut machine and taped lollipop/sucker sticks with them. The "poles" are empty wrapping paper tubes wrapped with colored cellophane. The tops of them, which you can't really see, are glass candle holders filled with gumballs, wrapped in opalescent cellophane. I got the idea myself when I looked at the candyland game and saw the King had a gumball staff.

For the gumdrops, I cut from cardboard, spray painted them and while still wet, sprinkled white sugar over them to give them a realistic gumdrop look!

For the lollipops: some I used styrofoam circles, but those got pricey after getting a few, so my mom came up with the brilliant idea to staple two paper/styrofoam plates together and then wrap in cellophane. Brilliant I tell you! Shove some dowels in there for sticks and there ya go.

Paper plate birthday sign. Paper pinwheels lined along the bottom of the wall.

My favorite part, Balloon arch! Don't be intimated by making these, because they are actually super simple. My dad let me borrow his air compressor to fill up balloons (or else I'd be dead from lack of oxygen), twisted balloons around some thin, flexible pvc pipe (found at Home Depot) and it was a cinch. The tricky part was getting it to stay up. I got some stakes that fit right into the pipes and tied the top of arch with string to my rain gutter. I really loved making this, I can't wait to have reason to make another one!

This is my pathetic attempt at a sucker topiary. I didn't have enough dum dums to close up all the spaces, so I had to make do with what I had. I was disappointed to find out that all those suckers make the styrofoam balls heavy....making it not able to stay standing. arg.

Faith's party: The Fun

The easiest way, I read, was to do stations as activities for the kids. Each station being about one of the Candyland characters. At the beginning of each one, I held up a picture I printed of the character and read a small thing about them that I found in the Candyland game. Then we'd do our activity.

Once again, these pro pictures were all taken by my SIL Marcie. She was a lifesaver for doing this or else I'm afraid I would have no pictures to show.

To start we did a Pinata, rainbow colored '3'. That was for the start of the game..the rainbow start (which they also went under the balloon arch and walked along the rainbow path for this also). Olivia ended up being the one that broke the thing loose! Didn't take long for that candy to get claimed. I had each kid draw their name on a paper bag to hold their loot in.

Next up was Jolly from the Gumdrop Pass. For that I put gumdrops in a jar and whoever guessed the closest number won that. I gave little pieces of candy to the rest of the kiddies. My bro was awesome enough to do the one I made for the adults too.

Next for Mr. Mint, I had them come take a seat on the stairs and passed out paper peppermint pinwheels, pencil and trimmed pin. Stick the pin through middle of paper into eraser of the pencil and you got yourself a fun twirly pinwheel.

Then we headed back to the kitchen for Gramma Nutt and had a peanut butter eating contest. I gave them each a spoonful of peanut butter and I think we had a tie.

Then for Lord Licorice, I gave them pull n' peel licorice and fruitloops to make necklaces, rings, headbands or to just eat it. As you can see I'm still wearing my fruit loop-licorice ring in picture above. =)

For Gloppy, they each got a chocolate oreo pudding cup to eat. That was the messiest I wanted to get with that character. =)

For Lolly, I handed out Big Whirlypops with paper attached that said, "Thanks for making my day so Sweet. Love, Faith". I did have plans to stick them outside in the flower bed, but the weather so SO the opposite of wanting to cooperate.

Last but not least, Queen Frostine. I made a cape and crown for Faith and crowned her Queen of the day, while the other kids received ring pops! We went straight into gifts after that, then cake/ice cream.

Enjoying the yummy treats.........and running around in a major shuga high. Oh to be a kid again and eat that much candy but not feel bad afterward.

Faith: The Birthday Girl!

Here's some cute shots of our birthday girl in her cute birthday outfit!

These next 2 have got to be my favorites, too cute! Thanks Marcie, you rock!!

I can't believe our lil firstborn is going to be going to kindergarten in TWO years! ahhhhh I'm not ready for my girls to grow up. I now understand why my dad always told me "But don't you want to stay a little baby forever?!" They're so sweet, innocent, precious, trusting, forgiving, loving.... then they become teenagers. =)

Faith's party: The Food

Today was the big day, Faith's Candyland party! Wow, 2 months of planning and preparing and then the party's over just like that. Amazing.

I'm kinda relieved it's over, maybe cuz it's one more thing I can check off my list. Such a good feeling. =) It was way fun though, I sure hope everyone that came had as much fun as I did! I could definitely tell the kids were excited, especially about the loads of candy at our candy buffet!

I know it was an overdose of candy and sweets, and I'm sorry parents but what fun is Candyland without the CANDY! =)

Besides a whole variety of candy for the buffet, we had jello jigglers, rainbow fish crackers, 5 different colored Hawaiian punch drinks (found at Walmart), Mint cookie cupcakes and rainbow cupcakes with ice cream cones. I couldn't help make 2 different kinds of cupcakes because they both sounded SO good and cute and fit right in with the theme! I loved the incredibly bright colors on the rainbow ones.

Pretty much all these awesome, pro photos are courtesy of my SIL Marcie! Didn't she do awesome!

I think it's safe to say that we're set in the candy department for Easter, Tim's birthday, my birthday, Halloween and Christmas....and every other holiday in between. =) Got a sweet tooth? Come on over and I'll help ya with that.

Faith's birthday!

Today our sweet lil Faith turned 3! It was the first year that she understands what a birthday is, and was SUPER excited about it!

Her favorites are as follows:

Color: Pink, purple and blue.

Book: Brown bear, Brown bear

Song: Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, I love to see the Temple and I am a child of God.

Game: rolie polie with dad. (He rolls them in a blanket down a mattress from our bed to floor.)

Movie: Full House (knows all their names and pretty much has seen every season.)

Pal: Mikkie (she is always making sure Mikkie gets treats, etc. first before her)

Food: Pizza and CANDY.....duh =)

Drink: Water (no wonder she's so skinny, compared to Mikkie-the tank who drinks milk ;)

For dinner tonight we had her favy, pizza and chocolate cake and ate on the floor which she thought was pretty cool unlike her dad who didn't see the fun in it. (every party has a pooper ;)

It was pretty simple tonight....the real fun comes Saturday!

Mikkie, however, did NOT sit on the floor with us......and you can see why.

For her gift, Tim and I worked on this little play kitchen over the past month or so, and though it has many imperfections (please don't look too closely) we were pretty happy with our results.

I think Mikkie seemed more excited than Faith, she dove right in and started playing with it, stuffing the cart and fridge with play food....that made Faith interested all the sudden.

I found a little play set at Wally World that came with a little cart...see how it says Walmart on it, how cute is that?! We got some extra play food to go with it and now need some play pots, pans and dinnerware but can't really find any for a good price.

We're pretty sure she had a fun birthday, she is such a sweetheart and we're SO happy to have her in our family! Thanks to all of you who remembered her on her special day, I can tell it made her feel good. =)

The big 1!!

My lil baby turned 1 Tuesday!! People weren't lying when they said kids grow up too fast. It feels just like yesterday that I had her. Thank goodness it wasn't though. =)

I'm very glad we had Mikkie when we did. She's the perfect lil sister and friend for Faith. They are good buddies. It's so sweet to see them play with eachother now. It makes their mama happy. =) She was a bit tougher of a baby. Except labor....it was quicker and better than Faith's....45 minutes man! I'm dang proud of that! Recovery was also quicker and nicer with her. But she did have colic. I think I grayed a lil and lost some hair during that phase.

Some things that describe her and some of her favorite things:

She has the best, cutest puppy face

She loves playing with her big sister

She is a precious lil angel

She could eat a whole box of cheerios

She'll put anything in her mouth..but especially likes to chew and eat the crayons.

She pulls books off shelf all the time and takes after her sister in ripping them.

She loves to climb the stairs. She's had it mastered going up for a while, going down...not so much and scares me when she attempts to by herself.

She loves her bottle, she's a very good eater.

She LOVES, loves phones and anything else that glows. I can always count on it to keep her quiet.

She loves bath time, especially playing with Faith and toys in there.

She is a chomper...loves to bite toes, fingers, cheek and noses....and pretty much anywhere else she can get to. Tim's nose is especially her favorite.

She likes to munch on grapes all day long.

We had a pumpkin themed party, cuz she's my lil Punkin'. Her birthday snuck up on me, so it was a little more low key but was still fun! Oh and btw, these pix are all from my phone, so they're not the highest quality, but hey it's better than nothing, right?! Faithy decided it would be fun to break my camera's battery charger. So....yea ;)

A pumpkin bundt cake * decided to try something different for a sign instead of paper, I used gourds * cute lil treat bags for the kids and I DID remember to give them out this time!! * Mikkie in her 3 cute outfits she got! She looks so cutsie in all of them!

Yummy Pumpkin cream cheese spread with bagels that I will share the recipe for cuz it was so good * Pumpkin butter we got from CT with saltines were quite tasty * Orange cream punch which I'm also going to share the wealth cuz I likey so much * All of our guests who made the night so much fun- I thought it was cool how Coleman was twirling a balloon and with my bad camera it made it look more like a cool burst of orange light

Present time- got some cute stuff! It was so nice of everyone. * I got a personal chocolate fudge cake for Mikkie to dig into * She got the hang of it pretty fast * big bow from present on her head* Look how strong she is standing all by herself * orange banner to go along with the orange/pumpkin theme.

Wow, long post! Just so much to say about our sweet baby girl and how much fun it is to have her in our family!

RECIPES:

Pumpkin cream cheese spread

Ingredients:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Beat all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. Makes 1-1/2 cups (24, 1-tablespoon servings).

Orange Cream Punch

ingredients

• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 12-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• Orange food coloring
• 2 1-liter bottles club soda or ginger ale, chilled
• Orange sherbet

directions

1. In a punch bowl combine sweetened condensed milk and orange juice concentrate. Tint with orange food coloring, if desired. Add club soda.

2. Top with small scoops of orange sherbet. Serve immediately. Makes 16 servings.