Thomas the Train party!!

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Recently, Simon turned 3! I couldn't think of anything more suitable than a train themed party for him. He LOVES his train set, and pretty much everything that's related to Thomas. We had a quiet little party this year, with just 4 party guests.

I had been picking up Thomas books at a second hand shop so that I could make a little banner for Simon's birthday. I ended up with enough, that I made two banners. They turned out to be Simon's favorite part of the party! He was so excited to see all of his favorite trains on the banner.The banners have since been relocated to his room.

 I made two cakes for this party, a chocolate and white cake. I baked them both in a round cake pan. Then I used a large circle cutter to cut a circle out of the middle of each cake. I made a template for the cake, and then cut a section out of each each. My sister used the chocolate cake leftovers to make cake coal pops.

I covered the cake with green icing, and lined it with kit kats to look like train tracks. Then I placed a few trains along the track.

 I created a little Thomas cover for the juice boxes, so that all of the juice packs would look like Thomas trains. If you're interested in the template, just let me know and I can add it to this post.

One of the girls at the party is gluten free. I made some gluten free graham crackers, and the kids loved them. I also made gluten free gingerbread muffins which were a big hit.

 For lunch we made pizzas on gluten free tortillas, with peperoni cut into the shapes of trains.

I attempted to cover the table and make it look like a big Thomas. It didn't turn out quite how I had envisioned it though!

 Simon hasn't quite mastered the art of blowing our candles yet, so I had to help him out a bit.

I used one of my old Ikea side tables for the kids to eat at. They love sitting in the little chairs!

I covered the table with kraft paper, and used electrical tape to make the train tracks.

Here's a pic of the second banner that I made for Simon.

This game was a big hit with the kids. We played toss the coal into Thomas' coal tender. (Simon later informed me that Thomas does not have a coal tender. Guess I should have checked with him first!) My sister filled black balloons with rice and then tied them off- that was our coal. Using the train tracks that I had made on the floor, we tried to use those as a guide for where the kids should stand to toss in the coal. Turns out 3 year olds are a bunch of cheaters, and they all moved as close as they wanted to Thomas to toss in the coal. It doesn't matter, they all had so much fun playing this game!

I opened up two diaper boxes, painted the inside blue, and then folded them back up into boxes. I painted the inside so that I'd only have to do one coat of paint. I used electrical tape to make the designs on the side of Thomas, and printed out a Thomas face for the front of the box. I cut a hole my husband cut a hole on the top of the tall box, for the coal.

Here's cheater Simon birthday boy Simon tossing in the coal.

And that's it. He (and Claire) loved the Thomas birthday party. Fun was had by all!

polar bear birthday!

 Claire's birthday party was actually back in February, but I'm just getting around to posting about it now. 

She insisted on a polar bear themed party. WHY can't she choose easy party themes??  Last years party was a giraffe themed one. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, I love planning parties. I had lots of fun thinking of polar bear things that we could do and decorate with.

I have no idea why it never occurred to me to string balloons on fishing line and then hang them up. That's what I did here, and it worked so well. Then Mom and I twisted lengths of streams to go behind the food table.

Our party was quite small, so I don't make too much food.

I had some Hershey's Kisses that I added a few stickers to the bottom of. I used the 4th of July ones found here. Obviously I just used the blue ones, and saved the rest of the sheet for another project. That I haven't created yet.

I made homemade timbits mostly so that we could play a game with them. I will post the recipe for these shortly- they are so good!

In an attempt to stick with the polar bear theme, I made an igloo using blue jello and some icing. I think that I used 4 packages of jello, and half of the required water (so that they were more like jello jigglers). Then my sister lovingly piped the white lines on the igloo.

I wrapped the juice packs that I picked up with a sheet of white paper. I added googly eyes, and a small heart that I had cut out with my heart punch from a piece of black paper. I used a black pen to draw the mouth, and then added the ears that I had punched using my circle punch.

I baked these graham crackers on sticks, because everything is so much more fun to eat on sticks!

And here's the cake. I was so excited to see that Martha Stewart had created a bear template for a cake. I have used Martha's template in the past to make Claire's giraffe cake. I used a board that I had in my house, leftover from a craft project. It wasn't quite long enough, so I did end up making the arms a little bit shorter so that they would fit on the board. I also used a butter cream recipe, so that I wouldn't have to try to refrigerate it.

My sister in law cut these polar bears out with her cricut. (I love my cricut, but I still have the old school one, so it only cuts 6x12 paper! She cut these ones to be much larger.) I taped a string along the back of them and hung them over the streamers.

This was my sad attempt at drawing a pin the mitten on the polar bear game. My sister and I drew it, and Claire decorated the bear. 

We also played another game, but I can't seem to find any pictures from it. I used my homemade timbits, and strung them on a long piece of string. My sister did this ten times, one for each party guest. When all of the timbits were on the strings, we hung them from a broom handle. The kids had to try to eat the timbits snowballs without using their hands. It's a fun game, the kids always love it. 

This was one of my favorite parts of the party. For the party hats (and doubling as the party favors) my Mom knit a polar bear hat for each child. Mom used the free pattern found here.

I can't believe that she's 5!! She starts school this year! Happy Birthday my little big Clairity Boo!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op& Tatertots and Jello 

Halloween party!

We hosted a little Halloween party here this afternoon. I planned almost everything from ideas that I had seen on Pinterest.

I made banana chocolate chip muffins and used these cupcakes toppers that I had picked up last year from Winners. (Made by Wilton) Want the recipe? I used my Best Banana Muffins Ever recipe found here.

I love these stickers that Claire and I stuck to the bottom of these Hershey's Kisses. Is anyone else excited that they changed the formula for the kisses? I think they are delicious now! I found the printable here.

I baked sugar cookies on popsicle sticks and decorated them to look (sort of like) mummies. These were a big hit with the kids, I mean come on, cookies on sticks?! That's where it's at.

I put a bit of floral foam in the bottom of these containers that I picked up at Dollarama to hold the cookies.

 Sticking with the mummy theme, I wrapped up a few juice packs using white electrical tape and googly eyes. I also decorated cookies that had been cut with a gingerbread cookie cutter to look like mummies. I used M&M's for the eyes.

 One of my favorite things that I made was this banner. I used my cricut to make it. I cut 5" circles out of black cardstock, and then cut all of the letters on white paper, using my Opposites Attract cartridge.

I've seen a few variations of this on Pinterest. I didn't want to have to cut everything by hand, so I cut the only shapes that I could find on Cricut cartridges. Luckily, my friend Sylvia, had a few cartridges that I could borrow.  I taped all of the black paper to some fishing line and hung them up between the two posts.

 A while ago, I placed another order from Bargain Balloons. I went in on an order with a friend so that we could split the flat shipping rate. I just love the selection of balloons, and you cannot beat their prices. (That is not an affiliate link. Bargain Balloons don't know who I am, I just love their site!)

  My last bit from the party was another printable that I found on Pinterest. (Seriously, where did I come up with ideas before Pinterest?) The tags say "A bit of light for Halloween night." I found this printable here.

Claire was dressed up like a horse. (Lucky find this summer while my sister and I were yardsaling!)

Simon was dressed up as Super Simon, cute kid by day, and superhero by night!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

perfect summer punch

I first had this punch at my bridal shower which was *ahem* 7 years ago now. My best friend hosted the shower, and her Mom made this punch. When I knew that I wanted to serve punch at Simon's party, I knew that this was the one that I wanted to serve. I emailed Dora, and she sent along the recipe to me. Because we were having such a small party, I halved the recipe, which was more than enough. This is the original recipe, so it would be perfect if you're having a large barbecue this summer.

2 cans frozen pink lemonade
2 cans water
2 cans frozen orange juice
2 cans water
1 can Dole unsweetened pineapple juice
2 L Sussex Golden ginger ale

Mix all together and serve. Garnish with orange slices.  

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

I Dig Being 2

Simon's two now, and I just love this age. He is so adorable (says his unbiased mother) and learning so many new things everyday. One of Simon's favorite things is watching big construction trucks. He's always mesmerized by them. So, I settled on a construction party for Simon, and our theme was, I dig being 2.

I made the banner by using a few sheets of 12x12 paper. I cut the paper in half (6x12) and then cut it into thirds. I used my cricut to cut out the happy birthday letters.

The cake was my favorite part! Seriously, this was the easiest cake to make too. I used Martha Stewart's chocolate cake recipe, and my own butter frosting recipe. I frosted the bottom layer of the cake. Then, I used a fork to start digging away to make the hole in the top layer. I put all of the extra cake bits in a bowl. Then, I just put the cake together and finished frosting the whole cake. I frosted the cake the night before the party, and waited until the morning of the party to put it all together. I placed the backhoe on the cake, and 2 of the pylon candles. I made a few signs for the cake. It's hard to read them in the picture, but one says I DIG BEING 2, and the other one says YIELD FOR CAKE. I crumbled the cake that I had set aside. I mixed in a little frosting with it so that I would be able make a little mound of dirt. I put the dirt mound on the back of the cake and covered it with a few more cake crumbs. That's it. 15 minutes from start to finish.

 It was an afternoon party, so I didn't go crazy on the food table. There were grapes and apple carrot muffins. I had water, juice, and a punch for the party goers to drink. 

I've seen construction parties where people load up their dump trucks with brownies to look like dirt. I loved that idea, but since my party was for two year olds, I decided to make muffins instead. I used my sister's cake pop make to make apple carrot muffins in balls so that they would look like boulders.

 I made a little label for the water, using a free clip art graphic.

 This is the aforementioned punch I made for everyone to drink. (Recipe to follow in another post.)

 Using my cricut I cut out the letters to make these signs on 12x12 paper. (If you don't have a cricut or similar machine, check out your local scrapbooking store. Most of these stores will offer their tools for their customers to use. Or you could just pick up a few packs of stickers.)

 Derek, my husband, made this car track on the floor for the kids to play with. He used masking tape to create all of the pathways. 

 One of the best party activities was this giant colouring sheet that I made. I used a sheet of bristol board, and traced some shapes that I printed from my cricut. (I'm terrible at drawing, so I'm many of you could do this freehand!) The kids loved colouring it. All of them sat down to help. I hung the picture on the wall before the kids sat down to eat their cake.

 There wasn't a lot of noise while the kids were eating their cake!

 I was trying to get a picture of Super Simon holding the fun balloons, but he was not interested in a photo shoot.

Simon had a great time. Simon was a little overwhelmed by all of the kids at Claire's party, so this was the perfect size party for him. And just like that, my party planning is over for another year, unless I plan a summer ice cream party...

 What about you? Do you love planning parties? Leave me your links in the comments, I'd love to check them out!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello