Girl's 2nd Birthday Party, Tangled themed!

Here's another throwback, the birthday party we did for our daughter's 2nd birthday party.  Here's the thing, I really like doing themed parties.  I honestly feel like if I didn't enjoy the creativity that comes from crafting your own themed decorations, then I'd probably get really really lazy and put off doing anything for the party until the last minute.  But doing themes helps get my creativity going and helps me focus and plan ahead.

So when the girl turned 2 in July 2011, her favorite movie at the moment was Disney's Tangled so we went with that theme.

For these lanterns I simply found a print out, printed out about a dozen of them on printer paper, taped them together and hung them to the light strand with yellow yarn.  Easy peezy.  The reason why I decorate the night before the party, is because I love seeing the look of surprise on their face when they wake up in the morning like "Holy crap!  My party is today!"

All I did here was put some hooks in the ceiling and hang some fairy lights up and then attach lanterns.  So it sort of looked like the birthday festival of lights Rapunzal has.

The store bought paper plates and stuff.  We're not too fancy for that!

For favor bags, I made a cut out stencil of the sun from the movie and then just painted in the stencil with purple paint.

I don't know if you can tell, but this birthday hat is a birthday cake.

Another shot of the lights, this has the pendant banner I made for the party.  I used the same sun stencil, and just painted a bunch of yellow suns on purple card stock paper I bought.  Then I strung a gold ribbon through each pendant to hang it up.

This was an idea I got from somewhere on the internet.  It's blue jello, and after the jello sets you just slice orange wedges to make boats and attach little sails made out of purple felt and toothpicks.

Had to include these photos of her hugging on Grandpa :)

The cake was also pretty easy.  1) Call store and order Tangled theme cake.  2)  Go to store and give them money and they give you a cake.  Done!

Yay!  It was a super fun party and our little sunshine face made our whole day with how playful and happy she was.

Throwback: The girl's first birthday 2010

Ok so I'm going to do a little bit of... I don't know what you'd call it... back track blogging?  I should have started a family blog years ago, because now I think it's a great place to pretty much dump all the precious family memories and have it to reflect on later.  Since my daughter is having her fourth birthday right around the corner, I want to revisit her birthdays from the past.  So onward!

Here she is just a week before the first birthday

And here she is enjoying a cupcake from my aunt's deli

And now onto the party prep, which always happens the night before the party in our house.  

Since it was a one year old's party, the decorations are pretty simple.

This is pretty important, because these two stuffed animals, Eeyore and Tigger, became inseparable from my daughter since the day she met them.

This was a banner I painted by hand for her party.

And I made this cake myself.

The day of the party

Here is the moment she met Tigger.  It was adorable because she instantly grabbed him, hugged him tight and tried to leave immediately as if to say "This is all I needed!  Thanks everyone!  Great party!"  She was already pretty happy just having Tigger to hug, she almost showed no interest in her other presents.

This chair came from Amy and Robert.  They always manage to find some of the coolest presents for my kids.

And this was at the point where the baby is all tuckered out from an exciting day of having her first party ever.  She is ready for a nap!

Sometimes I Take Candid Shots of My Family Sleeping

Sometimes the baby fashions her own hammocks to sleep in