Chloe's 2nd Birthday Party

Since Chloe's birthday fell on a Monday this year, we celebtrated it on Saturday and had a few friends and family members over as well.

 

The day started with this lovly knot she created. I am ready for her to stop twirling her hair, I have had to cut several knots out already. Tell me it gets better....

It's a family tradition that you get to pick out a donut on your birthday so that was the first place we went. We visited a new donut shop, Liv's Donuts, and they have such fun creations. Luke ALWAYS goes for a cake donut with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles, so that was a given, but I wasn't sure what she would choose. With some help from big brother, Chloe chose her very first birthday donut to be a round donut with Lucky Charms- so random since we have Never had Lucky Charms in our house.

 

Our score of fun donuts. My go-to is an old fashioned, I chose chocolate this time. But we had quite the variety, Lucky Charms, Oreo, KitKat, Chocolate Filled, Maple with Chocolate Chips- DELISH!

Quite honestly, she wasn't a huge fan. I think the dry cereal threw her off. She ate a few pieces of Lucky Charms and that was about it.

 

Then I put her to work to make her birthday cupcakes... Just Kidding! She played with the spoon for a minute while the oven was preheating.

Luke got in on the action too, tell me I am not the only mom of a boy who NEVER wants to have pants or shorts on...just undies. Boys...

 

A few 'party' details. I say 'party' because it was just a very casual get together of her grandparents, an uncle and our best friends. We missed the family that couldn't make it, but everyone else lives out of town.

Here are the favor bags. I stuck with just using the colors pink, green and blue- just like her room. The favors each had a fruit snack, toy airplane, my little pony ( toy cars for the boys), stickers, and alphabet cards.

 

This garland should look familar. This fabric was tried to the bottom of her crib like a bed skirt, but I am planning to hang it like this once we get her big girl room all put together. The blue lantern, green owl, and pink 'C' are all decorations from her room.

Time kinda got away from me while I made cupcakes so this was the extent of the crepe paper...that was the cleanest the play room looked all day :/

Here is a view from the living room. I got this pack of paper pompoms from Party City and plan to add them to her room as well.

 

The Good Stuff! The 'party' was at 3pm, so we just had a few light refreshments out.

These kids love watermelon, so that was a given. Plus, it is pink and green already, I just needed a blue tray. This pink lantern is from her room as well.

There is always room for candy at a birthday party. We got this little 3-bowl  holder for our wedding and it has held up well. The top is sour watermelons, then pink and blue Hersey Kisses and the bottom had pink, blue and green Sixlets.

The finished product of the cupcakes. They turned out very bright and festive. You can see here about how I made my own Cupcake Holder.

 

More decor items from Chloe's room. This green owl was originally concrete colored so we spray painted it green and the pink owl was orange and we spray painted it pink. Spray paint is magic, isnt it?

These kids always go straight for the play room :)

 

The kiddos having an afternoon snack while the grandparents chill on the couch

Chloe and her presents. Everyone was so generous and she loved every single gift! She walks around with this My Little Pony and says, " I wuv it, I wuv it!"

She got her very first Elsa doll. Her eyes got so big when she opened the bag and recognized the Frozen theme.

 

She did a great job opening her presents. She was pretty young at Christmas, so I did most of those, but she did pretty much every present herself. And yes, the grandparents were Ooohing and Aahhing to the informercial playing in the background!

Her special birthday cupcake

 

"Mom, aren't you done taking pictures...." You will notice Luke in background trying to blow out her candle.

Chloe 1, cupcake 0

She also got these fun tunnels that all can connet together. Uncle Scott put them together so the kids could play outside.

Four of my favorite guys!

Three kiddos on trikes. I'm pretty sure that Luke snuck inside to play with the toys Chloe got for her birthday, ha!

And we had some fun with farm animal masks.

 

A valient effort was made to get all 4 of them to sit, wear their mask and look in one direction...this is what we ended up with...

 

The adults accomplished the mission just fine!

It's favor time!

Finishing the night off with a little Frozen and fruit snacks, but not for little Sadie :)

We had a great day and I know Chloe loved the special time she got to spend with everyone at our house. Happy Birthday sweet girl. You are loved beyond measure.

DIY Cupcake Holder

So occasionally I get the guts to attempt to make something for my house, by way  of crafts.  I am NOT a craft person (see here) and am certainly envious of others who can do amazing things with just a piece of twine. I have a friend who is basically the MacGyver of crafting and there are certainly times where I wish I could do what she does. But, I am me. I get crafty moments and Sometimes, just sometimes it actually turns out how I wanted. 74% of the time, things turn out like those pinterest fails.

I have wanted to try this for a while now, I mean it's 3 steps. I HAVE to be able to do something with only 3 steps. So I set out to my local Dollar Store and grabbed 2 different sized plate and a candle holder. I started getting a little brave in the store with different vases and such to use between the plates, but in the end I settled for something basic. Something that could be used over and over. So, $3 later, I had my supplies to make a cupcake stand. This little baggie of glue sticks has been around for at least 5 years- shows you how many times I break out the hot glue gun, eh?

The instructions for this are very simple. Basically, hot glue the candle holder between the 2 different plates- that's it!

I laid the smaller plate upside down and glued the top of the candle holder to the middle of the plate.

Then I set the bottom plate right side up and glued the bottom of the candle holder to it, this approached allowed me to use the candle holder for leverage.

This turned out great- here it is in all its glory holding the cupcakes for Chloe's birthday party- more on that later :) The plates themselves, held almost 20 cupcakes.

So I say again, if I can do it, ANYONE can do it! This is super simple to do and I can see all kinds of fun varieties that can be created.  Happy Crafting!

Chloe is 2

This sweet girl entered the world 2 years ago today, at 10:05 p.m. to be exact, which was 8 days past her due date (More on that later). We didn't find out what we were having with either child, but for some reason I thought this one was a girl. We had a great time celebrating her over the weekend and will post more about that soon.

Chloe has brought so much joy into our lives in the last 2 years. She is super sweet and I love that she will just walk right up to us and give us a kiss for no reason. Her voice is the cutest, unless she is screaming because Luke took away her toy or even looked at the toy she was holding, and she can say so many words. Last night, unprovoked, before I left her room at night she told me to ' Sleep Good Mommy." She mimicks everything her brother says. The other night she sang "You are my sunshine" to me, a song I have been singing to her since birth but in her own personalized Chloe way. She is the most accident-prone little one, poor thing bleeds on a weekly basis. BUT, it has sure made her tough. 

Here are a few pictures over the years:

In the Nursery the day before the induction. Ugh, being 9 months pregnant in August in the Central Valley is a triple doozey. Because we didn't know the sex, we did a gender neutral room. A month or so after she was born, we turned everything orange in her room to pink. I made the yarn wrapped letters (it would have been Connor, if she had been a boy) and Aaron made the white night stand and the blue book shelves.

 

This was the morning after she was born. I had a VERY different birthing experience with Luke and he wasn't allowed in our room, so this was all new to us. She was a great sleeper as a baby and her favorite spot was right under my chin, it still is to this day.

Sleepy girl, still in the hospital. I soaked up as much time as I could with the nurses around and getting as much assistance I could with breastfeeding. From the induction to going home was almost 5 days.

A few newborn shots

 

Her cute little perfect face.

 

Her first Halloween. I loved dressing her up in fun clothes as a baby, now she is very particular about what she wants to wear. lol.

This is from my old phone, so not the best quality. But the onesie says it all...
" My brother wanted a puppy...but he got me insteasd"  So true.

 

She was such a smiley bug as a baby.  I always put her in bows too. One time, while she had on pink pants and a white onesie with pink hearts, someone asked if she was a boy or a girl... .She wore a bow every day after that :)

 

This was right before her first birthday. The rocking chair she is in was my grandmothers. Love sentimental items like that.

 

This was one of her 1-Year Pics at a park near our old house. She wasn't walking yet so it was much easier to photograph her :)

 

This was at her First Birthday party. She loved the tutu I made her and still asks to wear it. She spent the majority of her time pushing these white little IKEA chairs around before she actually took her first steps. Silly girl.

Still cute and smiley with food on her face.

Chloe loves to do crafts. We painted these step stones shortly before we moved.

 

This was Easter at my mom's house. She had a great time running around the yard with her brother and almost twin cousin. Chloe is 7 months younger than my sister's daughter and Luke is 7 months older than one of His sister's daugters too! It will be so fun to watch them grow up so close in age.

 

Playing on the playset at Nana's house. She has been a climber since she could crawl.

We took a few pictures at our favorite park by our old house before we moved. This was in May 2016.

 

 

This last one was from our trip to Tahoe last month.

 

Cannot to wait to see what this year brings with this sweet girl. My Princess.  Hopefully we can take 2-Year photos this coming weekend.