My little boy is officially three years old. Where does the time go! With the end of summer here, my big girl saying good-bye to pre-school and prepping for Kindergarten and with my little man's party...it's been busy around here. Like many three year olds, my little one is a huge 'Cars' fan...he would probably watch that movie a thousand times if we let him. So what better theme for his party this year then Cars.

I love to throw the kids their parties but as I have said before, I try to do it using what I have and without breaking the bank. My best deal found this time around was the large decal that covered almost the entire sliding door; found it in a little run down local party shop for $5! With a little time, some bargain shopping and creatively using existing items, I think the place looked pretty good. 

The kids loved it, he especially got a huge kick when he woke up and found the house decorated with all things Cars! More importantly we were in the company of our amazing family, we celebrated another milestone and we made him smile...now isn't that really what it's all about? 

It's official, my daughter has turned four! We can't believe that it's been four year since our lives changed...less sleep but still more fun. Speaking of more fun, we did something different this year...we had two parties! 

Party One: On the Saturday we had a party at our house for the family, decorated the house, had a cake, some BBQ, a piñata and had lots of fun with all our loved ones. I made the candelabra on the mantel using a tutorial from Etsy that you can find here. Her gold crown is from a cool little shop called Socials on Etsy. The banners, flowers, cake, shirt and princess tutu were all made be me! Well worth the effort because she loved every bit of it!

Party Two: Since this is her last year in her wonderful, fantastic, amazing pre-school, we had another party on the Sunday for all her little friends at an indoor playland. This place had a cool indoor play structure and all the kids just ran in and had some good fun. We served pizza, I made a veggie platter using the veggies most kids like or dislike the least (grape tomatoes, carrot sticks and cucumber) and my mother made an amazing fruit platter (grapes, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, plums and watermelon). My daughter likes dress up so we thought we'd dress up all the kids a little too. We gave all the girls fancy headbands that I made myself and top hats for the boys. As many parents know, it is sometimes hard to get the kids to leave when it's time to go, so instead of a cake we arranged to have an ice cream truck come at the end of the party. We also had balloon animals done while they waited courtesy of my sister-in-law (we just found out a month ago she could do these). All went smoothly except the ice cream truck was a little late so some of the families left without ice cream which was a bummer (won't use that company again). However the look on my daughters face when the truck did arrive was that of pure excitement and so it was worth the wait...plus it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for ice cream, what more could we ask for!

It was a very busy weekend but it was filled with people she loves and the people she loves to play with. We are grateful for everyone who came, everyone who helped and most of all, are grateful for having such a wonderful four year old in our lives. Happy Birthday Princess!

It's that time of year again, yup, my daughters birthday. There is something about birthdays that I love. I think a lot has to do with my family. My parents always made a big deal about birthdays, not by throwing crazy parties but by always buying a us new clothes for our day (my mom still does this for me), making sure we always had a cake, a special meal, maybe a special day trip, always waking you up with a birthday song (spanish tradition which my mom also still does via phone), and generally making the day special from morning, noon to night. 

Now that I have kids of my own I am enjoying birthdays even more. We are lucky that both their birthdays fall in warm months so we invite the whole family over, throw a nice family BBQ, play some games, bust a piñata and of course have cake. But I must confess that because I love an excuse to create and be creative...I am enjoying putting  a theme to them. Last year my daughters party was Tinkerbell inspired and my sons was Construction inspired. I don't go over the top (not even remotely close) and in fact I challenge myself is to use what I already have and limit any purchases to Walmart or the Dollar Store.

This year my daughter is into anything sparkly, she enjoys playing princess and dress up in general. So this years party will have a Princess meets Mad Hatter feel to it. I've already starting making her a princess tutu and some glamorous party hats. I will be sharing these little projects with you soon but in the meantime here is peak at her princess attire in the works. 
I have a lot to do...and I am so excited to do it. Did I mention I love birthdays? 
What are your favourite thing about birthdays?

We recently hosted a 30th Birthday Party for my sister-in-law. Here are a few pictures. I designed the invitiations and decorated everything in the same colours. We placed 80's and 90's trivia everywhere, partly for her age but mostly because she enjoys games/trivia. Instead of a present we asked people to bring in their favorite picture of the birthday girl. All the pictures were put into an album that the guests signed and the rest of the pages are now filled with pictures from her party. Everyone had a great time and so did she. Happy Birthday!

This weekend we celebrated our son’s birthday. He is completely fascinated with trucks, any kind of truck and he is simply over the moon if we pass by a construction site. Naturally, we went with a construction theme for his party. We did the classic signs everywhere (even on the bathroom doors), pylons, hard hats and tool boxes for all the kids (work gloves, CAT remote truck, tools, whistles, reflectors, flashlights, etc). We put together a ‘Mining’ station which was a bin full of sand and giant jewels for the kids to dig for, as well as a water table, a craft table and of course the non-themed related but traditional piñata. Both our families brought some great food, including a traditional Guatemalan dish and of course my homemade ice cream cake (which turned out great, phew)! It was a great day, the kids loved going through their tool boxes, eating the cake and our little guy was HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, all day even without his nap. We’re so proud of him…we love him.

So we recently celebrate our oldests 3rd birthday. We went with a Tinkerbell/Fairy theme. From invites, birthday T-Shirt, fairy outfit, decorations and to cake. I was happy with how it all turned out but more importantly, she was over the moon with it!