Avery's Pooh Party!

So, I know you're just dying to see and hear the details of Avery's 2nd birthday, right?  Okay guys.  Humor me.  Just pretend you're dying to see it all :)

The "Pooh Party" that Avery had been talking incessantly about for over a month went off without a hitch. It was a vast improvement over how I felt after her first birthday party.  That was a disaster.  This time, I was relaxed, not stressed.  If my floor didn't get mopped or my tables didn't get dusted, oh well.  My house was going to be a wreck after people came pouring in anyway.  I didn't obsess over decorations or food or details.  I just worked hard on everything and then didn't stress the day of.  It made for a VERY enjoyable day.

Details!

Food:  I did Winnie the Pooh themed foods.

Bar-BEE-Que sandwiches as the entree.

P-BEE-and J sandwiches for the littles, if they weren't partial to BBQ.

Veggies, straight out of Rabbit's garden.

Rolls and "hunny."  This was a special request from the birthday girl herself.  We were eating at a local steakhouse that gives you complimentary honey with your dinner rolls.  While Avery was dipping her rolls in honey, she asked me "At my Pooh party??"  So, we HAD to have rolls and hunny.

Side note:  check out these honey bottles I found at Walmart.  I was just going to get the regular jars of clover honey that are in the shape of a bear.  Then, this jar caught my eye.....

AHHHH!  Winnie the Pooh shaped honey jars!!  I may have bought four of them. 

Next, a "Pooh" tato bar.  Baked potatoes that you could load up with your choice of toppings--cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, broccoli, sauteed mushrooms, butter.

I didn't get a picture of them, but the baked potatoes were as big as your head.  Seriously.  I got them at Sam's Club and they were the biggest things I'd ever seen.  My sister told me that she felt like she deserved a t-shirt if she finished the entire thing.  Monstrous.

If you weren't feeling like a baked potato, you could also indulge in some "Pooh" tato chips. 

Finally, dessert. I didn't do a cake this year, but instead opted for cupcakes.  In my mind, I wanted to make something like this....

via

But this involved cutting apart yellow and black jellybeans and squeezing them together.  I'm too lazy for that.  Instead, I took Whoppers candies and drizzled them with yellow icing.  Lazy woman's version.  Sliced almonds for the wings.  Did they look as good as the above version?  Nope.  Don't care. 

Also, Tigger Tails!  Shout out to my sister-in-law for making these adorable orange colored chocolate dipped pretzels, drizzled in chocolate.  Marty can't stop eating them, three days later.

I bought a glass terrarium at Michael's and filled it with a yellow tablecloth to mimic honey.  Also to make the pretzel stand a little higher for easy accessibility. 

Avery's Outfit:  Many of you know that I stressed over what my little "hunny" was going to wear to her party.  Shoot, I wrote a whole blog post about it.  A Facebook friend sent me over to JossyBelle Bows on Facebook and she created exactly what I was picturing in my mind.  I didn't want a single Winnie the Pooh anywhere on it.  I just wanted it to be "Pooh-inspired."  This is what she made: 

And this is what it looked like on Avery: 

Decorations:  I honestly didn't do many.  My sister-in-law let me borrow some of the Pooh character stuffed animals, which I scattered around the house.  I bought red and Pooh-yellow tablecloths and put them on the food and present tables.  The only crafty thing I did was make a Pooh-inspired wreath that hung on the front door and that will be hung in her playroom later.  (inspired by this wreath on etsy).

Party favors:  I ordered some teddy bears online that the little girls could stuff themselves.  I also bought some Winnie the Pooh puzzles and some bug catchers at the Dollar Tree. Provided all the kids with a brown bag that they could keep their favors in.  I really hope the kids enjoyed them. 

Favorite picture of the day:  

*sigh*  Does it even need words?  It makes my heart smile so, so much.  She loves her Aunt Day-Day. 

Giggle of the day:  My sister-in-law had her son's Halloween costume from a couple of years ago.  Of course we had to try it on. 

Cuteness overload.  I can't handle. 

Favorite moment of the day:  There were lots of great moments, but by far my favorite moment happened when Avery opened a very special gift.  Marty's mom passed away in November of last year.  For Christmas, she had already purchased the kid's Christmas gifts before she passed, so they had something to open from her on Christmas Eve.  But a couple of weeks ago, my sister-in-law found some presents in her old bedroom.  And one of them had Avery's name on it.  Inside, was a Winnie the Pooh doll and sticker book.  When Arlene passed away, we hadn't planned Avery's party.  We didn't know it would be Pooh themed.  Heck, back in November, Avery wasn't even into Winnie the Pooh at that point. I still can't wrap my head around it. 

She's slept with it every night since.  Thanks Gaga.

The party was literally perfect.  I wouldn't change a single thing.  Happy birthday, my little "hunny."  

To My Avery, On Your Second Birthday

Oh my Avery.  My loud, spunky, giggly, attitude-y, rambunctious Avery.  How did we get here?  How did we get to the point that we're celebrating your SECOND birthday??  You should still be my cuddly infant.  The one that coos at the bugs on her carseat and is allergic to every fruit known to man.  Instead, you're a two year old.  A two year old that tells me when she's happy with something.  Or unhappy with something (mostly the latter).  I feel like I spend the majority of our waking hours together scolding you.  I feel like I'm constantly getting after you to share your toys, use your manners, not throw temper tantrums, use the potty, don't pee in your pants, don't empty mommy's makeup on the clean bedsheets....but I do it because I love you.  I love you and I want you to be a polite, fun to be around little girl.  I discipline because I want to know that someday, when I send you off to spend all day with a teacher or a babysitter, that I can rest easy knowing that I've taught you how to behave.  You're constantly pushing my buttons and testing your limits, but we make it through the day okay, right?  We have our moments where you come running up to me out of nowhere and hug my leg and say "Hold you please."  Then I pick you up and you squeeze my neck and say "I yuv you mommy."  And that's when I think my heart is going to explode right there.  My purpose in life is to be your mommy.  To kiss your boo-boos and find your lost Minnie Mouse doll.  To wipe your butt and wipe your tears.  There's nothing else I would rather be doing.  Because you make life worthwhile.  There's nothing like sitting with you for a couple of minutes and then listen to you talk and marvel at all the new words you've learned.  You are SO incredibly smart.  You pick up on things so quickly.  You can hold your own with the older kids in a room, which makes me so proud.  You're just like your daddy.  You're outgoing and not afraid to talk to anyone.  You make friends in the checkout line and tell them all about your fishy swimming at home in his bowl.  I honestly believe there's nothing you can't do.  I'm so proud of the little girl you're becoming.  Sure, we have our moments where I yell too much or you throw things in the floor just because you didn't get your way.  But we love each other and that's all that really matters. 

Happy 2nd birthday, my one and only Avery. 

Invitations at last!

I have a dream that one day my daughter will tell her friends that she's so thankful that her mother put so much work into making her birthday perfect. 

Probably won't ever happen.  But hey, I can dream can't I?

You'll be happy to know that the Great Pooh Invite Search is finally over.  But it ended in a very time-consuming, sticky conclusion.  For those of you that want to make your own special Winnie the Pooh invites that are different than everything else out there on Pinterest and Etsy, this post is for you.

After I wrote about not being able to find anything I liked for Avery's party invites, I literally went to bed and dreamt about them that night.  As soon as I woke up and got to work, I grabbed a piece of computer paper and whipped up a quick idea of what I wanted it to look like:

A hunny pot!  Not just any plain old hunny pot, but one that, when the lid is lifted, it reveals the invitations!


Hooray!!  I'm so pleased with how these turned out.  If you like them, here's how I did it...

Originally, I was going to cut out all the shapes by hand.  Such a stupid idea.  I'm incredibly blessed with parents that love me a whooooole bunch and got me a Silhouette Cameo machine for Christmas.  And I gotta say...a Silhouette Cameo is God's gift to the crafting world.  It's fantastic.  If you have a project like this that's going to take a lot of cutting, find a friend that has a Silhouette machine and see if they'll let you use it.  SO much easier than cutting everything by hand!!  Obviously, if you don't have a Silhouette, hand cutting is also an option--it's what I did with Avery's 1st birthday invites.  Not impossible, just takes longer.  So!  Let's get to it.

I found a honey pot shape on in the Silhouette store and downloaded it.  I figured out what size I needed the honey pots to be to fit into my envelopes and resized them accordingly. 

I continued doing this with other shapes until I ended up with all the shapes I needed.  When all the cutting was done, I ended up with two drips of honey, a honey pot and lid, a square for the invitation, bee wings and a body, and the word "hunny."  To ensure that I could put the invite down into the honey pot, I made sure to cut a line going across the top of the honey pot.

I made sure to pick a glue stick that would dry clear because I would be applying a whole bunch of it.  First, I attached the honey drips near the cut I made towards the top.  Then, I glued the "Hunny" words in the middle of the honey pot.  I attached the invitation I printed towards the bottom of the yellow square and then glued the lid to the top of the yellow square.  Finally, I glued the wings and the bee's body to the top of the lid and attached the RSVP information to that.

I slid the square invite into the slit at the top of the honey pot and voila!

 

Normally, when I have a creative idea in my brain, the finished project doesn't turn out like I envisioned it.  But this one was EXACTLY how I imagined it.  Pumped.  Best part about these?  Every invitation I found on Etsy that I halfway liked was like $3 apiece.  These invites (not counting postage or envelopes) were only 30 cents apiece.  Hooray for being cheap!

 

Oh, Pooh.

This Winnie the Pooh party will be the death of me.  They'll write on my tombstone:  "The Pooh did her in."

I had a mini-crisis earlier over Avery's birthday outfit.  That's been solved.

Now I've moved on to the invitations.  I'm seeing a lot of this kind of stuff....

via etsy

via etsy

Just kind of basic.  Easy (I really wish I knew what my aversion was to easy things...it'd make my life much simpler).

I know you're making fun of me.  And that's okay.  I love party planning.  I want everything to scream Pooh (without being cheesy overboard style) and I want everything to show that I worked hard on this.  That I cared enough to sit down and work on these invitations and didn't take the easy route.  I mean, did you SEE the invitations for Avery's first birthday party??  SUPER time consuming.  But so worth it.  I'm still getting compliments over those invites. 

So then I found stuff like this. And I die.

via etsy

At $55 for 8 invitations, this is not even an option.

via etsy

Again.  $44 for 8 invites?  Not gonna happen. 

I could make these myself.  But I have a Silhouette machine, which, unfortunately, doesn't have licensed character shapes for purchase yet.  So I would be hand-drawing all of the pots and Poohs and everything.  Doable....but very, time consuming.  

Sigh.  I need someone to make creative invites...and sell them for really, really cheap.  Is that too much to ask?

Pooh Pooh.

Yooooouuuuu guyyyysss.... (I've got my whiny voice on....can you tell??)

I'm having the hardest time EVER finding a cute outfit for Avery's birthday party.  First, let me start by saying that I know she doesn't have to have a new outfit for every birthday.  But I like the idea of making it a tradition.  My sister and I always got a new dress on Easter and Christmas.  Why not let Avery get a new outfit for her birthdays that make her feel special and party-ready?  Also, when I come up with a party theme, I see it to fruition.  I want it to be Pooh everywhere, even down to the outfit.  Back to the mission....

I've decided that Avery's 2nd birthday will be Winnie the Pooh themed.  She's into everything from Mickey to Sofia the First to Lady and the Tramp to Tangled.  The girl loves a different movie every day of the week. So coming up with a theme for this year was fairly difficult.  Back in March, Avery went through a pretty epic Winnie the Pooh phase.  We watched the Pooh movie every single day on repeat, we read Pooh books, we talked about Pooh, we slept with a Pooh blanket.  That's when I started looking on Pinterest at Pooh themed parties.  And I FELL IN LOVE.   I won't share any details because I don't want to ruin it, but holy cow...I'm pumped about this party.  Slowly after that, though, Avery started watching a different movie every week and has kind of gone away from the Pooh obsession.  This momma says too bad though, because we're going to have a rockin' Pooh party.  Avery obsessed, or not.

I've decided on invitations, food, decorations and favors.....which leaves the birthday outfit.

Let me be the first to say that I LOVE all things Disney.  I live for the day that my husband says we're going back to Disney World and can quote Disney movies like it's my job.  I do not, however, love Disney themed children's clothes.  They're just kind of tacky in my opinion.  So, when I was searching for Pooh outfit and came up with options like these below, I felt a little discouraged.

If you loved these items, don't get your feathers ruffled...they're just not my style AT ALL.

And I'm kind of over the whole "birthday-number-applique-on-a-tshirt" phase.

Again, if your child is sporting one of these at their upcoming party, don't get your panties in a wad.  My kid wore one for her first birthday party:

It's just one of those "been there, done that" kind of things.  I want something new.  I want something different than I'm seeing on Pinterest and every Winnie the Pooh party themed blog I've come across.  It's like I have a vision in my mind, but I'm just not sure what it is.  I feel like when I see it, I'll just know.   But for now, I'm feeling super frustrated that I'm just going to end up sticking my kid in a Pooh t-shirt from Walmart.  Help?