Natalie's 4th birthday pARRRty

For Natalie's 4th birthday party she wanted a pirate princess theme...And being the anti-birthday in a box I started from scratch.  We reserved our normal park shelter and hoped for good weather...we had the most perfect weather you could ask for (minus a little wind while setting up everything went as planned.)  I do this every year with Natalie's birthday- I start planning in November but am ALWAYS pulling it all together the week before!
Our Pirate Princess and her little matey:

I made bunting that said YO HO HO and AHOY MATEYS but with the wind I could only catch a picture of this one:

We changed it up this year in the food department.  We went with Jimmy John's sandwiches and some snacky sides...

I love finding stuff to use around my houses for parties. Example A- this treasure box holding the silverware was my Nana's...

And germ-X is a must!

Here are the food and labels:

Jewels

Peg legs

Salted meat and seaweed

Fish...

... & Chips

I ordered the cupcakes from Sugardarlings and I would do it over again...like today!  I made the cupcake toppers- so easy and way cheaper than buying them...

Each matey got a bandanna, eye patch, some pirate gold and a tattoo.  This treasure box is from iParty.

We had so much fun celebrating Natalie's 4th birthday will all of her friends and family!  The weather was beautiful, the food was great and she got some amazing presents!  Thanks again to everyone who helped out...

ARRR MATEY!

Sleeping pirate

 XOXO
Maggie & co.

PS- I have printables saved on my computer but I'm too lazy to put them on sribd so just e-mail me and I will send them to you in a PDF.

A Sesame Street Second

A Sesame Street Invite:

Here is the party invitation for Natalie's 2nd birthday party:

A Sesame-tastic Birthday Party 

Natalie's birthday party was this past weekend and it was awesome!  We had great weather, amazing kids, and good friends that helped us celebrate Natalie's big day.  Just like the invite it was a Sesame Street themed party.  Here are a few things I did for the party:

These are the table decorations.  My husband spray painted terra cotta pots to match Big Bird, Cookie, Abby, Elmo and Zoe's color.  Then we added googly eyes and pieces of foam to make them come to life.  Then I filled them with things that each of them are known for.  To make the googly eyes stay in a certain place (i.e.- Cookie), my husband punctured the back of the eye- place the black part where he wanted it and squeezed hot glue in the hole so it would stay.  This what a lot of work but a lot of fun and I am happy how they came out. 

      
   
  

     

                     

         

                                                                                      

                                                                              

   

Here are the favor bags.  I got the background from www.sesamestreet.org site (when you click on each Muppet it takes you to a page with info of them- I right clicked the shape and was able to copy it to my desktop).  I opened a Microsoft word document and inserted the picture and a text box with the words I wanted.  I did the same thing for the table decorations and just added a poem I wrote for each.

I filled them with bubbles, a Sesame Street bookmark- I printed out and laminated from the www.pbskids.org site and also I used cookie cutters on some cooked cookie dough and each child got their name.  (i.e.- Natalie would have gotten 7 letters to spell her name.)  The trick is to cook the cookie dough leaving the edges exposed- and when they are done- punch the cookie letters into the dough and carefully pull them apart.  I was going to have a station where the kids could decorate them but we decided on a bounce house instead...

                                                      

                 

                                                   

And then there was the cake!  A friend and her Mom baked and decorated it.  After researching Sesame Street cakes, I decided that I did not want any characters- I just don't like how they turn out.  So I wanted "N is for Natalie" on it, polka dots, stars, and 2's.  I loved how it turned out and it was SO YUMMY!!!

                                               

A Polka Dot First

First Birthday Decor

For our daughter's First birthday I planned a Polka Dot extravaganza.  I found the Polka Dot Market (see Favorite Sites) in the process.  Here are a few of the decorations I did.