Butterfly Birthday Party: The Cake

Dear Em,
This is the final post recapping your Butterfly Birthday Party (finally!). Why not end the fun with a little post about food? I think other than Butterflies, the common theme of this party for me ended up being things not working out exactly how I planned but you loving it all anyways. In keeping with that theme, the food didn't go quite as planned either.

The plan was for Roger Williams Zoo to provide pizza & drinks & ice cream for the party. It was part of the party package & made me happy to know that we wouldn't have to worry about food for the most part. Unfortunately the pizza they provided was burnt. I couldn't even bring myself to eat it...although you did & so did your little guests without much complaints. The party planners completely forgot about the ice cream (they offered to let us take it home but it was a hot day & we didn't have a cooler to store it). Luckily, the drinks were perfect. Ha!

In the absence of everything else, there was cake! We worked with Stop & Shop to create a cupcake birthday cake with your picture on it. It was easy. It was yummy. Everyone was happy. Success!!

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: The Venue

Dear Em,
I gave you the choice of where you wanted to have your birthday party this year, & you chose to have it at Roger Williams Zoo. We love Roger Williams Zoo. We love visiting all the animals. The Big Backyard is one of our favorite spots in all of Rhode Island. The zoo has come a long way over the years with all of the fantastic updates that have been made.

Unfortunately, having your birthday party at the zoo was a little bit of a disappointment. It was by far the most expensive venue we've used so far. First, the birthday package doesn't just include the kids. Adults are part of the headcount too. Second, the package is expensive because it covers the cost of the party itself as well as everyone's entrance fees into the zoo. I couldn't believe how quickly it all added up (& that was with our membership discount).

Still, I was looking forward to having party coordinators take over the entertainment. The birthday party descriptors talked about the coordinators playing fun games & leading creative crafts with all you kids so that I could enjoy the party. I was sure you would have a blast.

In reality, the activities involved sitting at tables...the whole time...with four & five year olds. There was one game. It was a guessing game. 90% of the crafting you did was coloring (we could have colored at home). By the end, all you kids were bouncing off the walls, & the party coordinators were not holding your attention at all. It was total chaos. Rather than sitting back & enjoying the moment, I became the person to ask your little friends to stop climbing up shelves or standing on benches. Music? Do you guys want to listen to some music? By the end, I was totally overwhelmed & completely exhausted (it was at that moment one of the coordinators expressed that they don't typically have parties with such young kids without all the parents being present...sigh, that might have been good to know when I was booking the party).

For me, there was one true bright spot during your two hour party: the Butterfly exhibit. It was there you & your little friends were able to finally move around & explore & have fun. Butterflies landed on some of your little friends, & you were all just happy to look at them all & walk around the butterfly garden.

Afterwards, some of your friends stayed for a little while. We let you guys run around the Big Backyard & burn off some energy. You were beaming. You loved every moment of your birthday party & the time you got to spend with your precious friends. To you, everything was perfect. Total chaos aside, I guess that's what really matters. You were thrilled with your 5.5 birthday party.

Still, we will never be having another birthday party at the Roger Williams Zoo.

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: DIY Favor Bags

Dear Em,
I love favor bags that include something that is usable over time. Our favorites are favor bags that include crafts. A few months ago, you went to a birthday party & received a favor bag that included a wooden lizard with paints. You named your lizard Lizzie & loved it. It was a wonderful rainy day activity.

I wanted to do something like that for your Butterfly Birthday Party favor bags. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any wooden butterfly painting activities that weren't crazy expensive (it turns out, I wasn't looking in the right section of the craft store). In fact, even after searching the internet & craft stores, I had a hard time finding anything that wasn't total junk or super expensive. So, I turned to Pinterest.

I made a Butterfly Birthday Board & pinned a bunch of DIYs that looked easy & fun. The first was this Butterfly Sun Catcher Craft I thought the kids would love.I had plans to include all of the paper materials in your favor bags so the kids could make their sun catchers at home. Unfortunately, this was one of those instances where the "easy" Pinterest project ended up being a total pain. Our printer wasn't cooperating, & I couldn't print out the free template from home. I went to Staples to print the butterfly templates, but they wouldn't print them because the image is copyrighted. Whomp Whomp.

That's when Nonnie came & saved the day. She traced & cut out each butterfly template by hand. It was extremely tedious & didn't come out looking exactly the way it did in the website picture. In the end, I think Nonnie was ready to kill me & the butterfly templates. I hope your little friends enjoyed making butterfly suncatchers. We haven't even attempted making ours. I think I'm sick of looking at them, frankly. But I'm still holding out that it will be a fun rainy day activity for you later this year.

Our next craft for the favor bag were these Butterfly Clothespin Magnets. I had plans to make them with you & Nonnie, but Nonnie quickly decided I had too much on my plate. You & Nonnie took over the project, & your butterfly magnets came out super cute.

The last thing to DIY was the favor bags themselves. I had purchased plain, brown bags, & I wanted to glam them up a little bit. We used the same butterfly punch from the craft store that we had decorated the party hats with. Nonnie glued the colorful butterflies onto the bags. It was one of the most simple DIYs we did (& I'm saying this knowing that it was ALL Nonnie).

We cut out circles & glued more punched butterflies to the middle. I wrote "Thank You!," punched a star hole through the circle, & used some pink twine to fasten the circles to each bag (Nonnie actually let me do that part). We filled up the favor bags with the Butterfly sun catchers, a butterfly airplane, a butterfly straw, & butterfly bubbles. Then we clipped the butterfly clothespin magnets to the tops of the bags. Viola, we had favor bags.

Not everything turned out exactly the way I had envisioned, & it al took a lot more time & energy than I would have hoped (so thankful that Nonnie was there to help/take over). Still, I think our favor bags were really stinkin' cute. They were a cute way to send off your little friends & let them know we were glad they were able to come to your party. And hopefully, some of the contents were usable over time (I know we've been using the clothespin butterflies as chip clips).

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: DIY Party Hats

Dear Em,
I think we've been pretty successful so far at throwing entertaining birthday parties with fun themes. We go with the theme when picking out the invitations, & we've let you & your little friends dress-up in the themes for most of your birthday parties. That's kind of as far as we've taken your birthday party themes up until this year. I typically get a little lost in the details.

We went to one absolutely stunning birthday party. EVERYTHING went along with the theme, down to the smallest detail. I was absolutely stunned & inspired about how much everything seemed to fit together so beautifully & brilliantly. This year I wanted to focus a little more on the details. I created a Butterfly Birthday Party Pinterest Board. It included DIY pins that looked like they wouldn't drive me crazy with complexity while also being cute.

That's why I decided this year I would make your party hats. I found these on Pinterest. They were adorable, & I knew I could easily create something fun & similar.

Rather than cutting out a ton of butterflies, I bought a butterfly punch from the craft store. While watching TV, I punched out beautiful, little butterflies out of scrap-booking paper. I was so excited that this DIY was really going to be as easy as it looked.

A few days before your party, with six other DIY activities to focus on, Nonnie casually mentioned that it might be easier to purchase purple & green party hats rather than trying to construct them ourselves. She was right, but purchasing party hats wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It was then that I learned how hard it is to find/buy party hats in one color. I can't even tell you how many stores I scoured, searching for purple & green party hats. Every store had multicolored hats with patterns or hats in rainbow colors. Augh!

I turned to the Internet. With only a couple days before the party, I grabbed the only purple hats I could find that had free 2 day shipping. Green wasn't even an option. Sorry to all the kids who don't like purple.

When the hats came in, Nonnie took this DIY project right out of my hands & made them look beautiful. She used a glue gun to fasten my butterfly cutouts to each of the hats. They looked perfect.

In the end, the hats weren't the complete DIY project I planned, but you loved the butterfly birthday hats...& I think everyone else did too.

Oh, & by "DIY," I mean the only thing I did myself was punch out the butterflies. Ha! Thanks, Nonnie!

I love you so,

Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: The Invites

Dear Em,
Just as promised...4 weeks ago, I'm going to recap your Butterfly Birthday party in a series of posts on Wednesdays. We'll continue with the invitations. These were my favorite birthday invitations yet, & I think that's because you had a hand in designing them.

I went to Etsy, my go-to site for birthday party invites. I typed "Butterfly Birthday Party Invitations" into the search bar. There was a huge selection to choose from. I narrowed it down to five or so of my favorites, & then I asked you which ones you liked.

At first you were all about color rather than design (you're always all about color). Once I explained to you that we could probably change the colors around, the invites from Lucky Plum Studio were your very favorites (& I think they had been mine too). They were almost perfect for you from the start. The invites were mostly pink, & the writing of your name would be in a sparkly gold (two of your favorite colors).

All we had to do was ask them if they could give us purple butterflies. Yenny was so wonderful to work with. We had beautiful butterflies in a mosaic of purple colors in no time. You were thrilled with the final result & glad that you had been a part of the process.

It was the perfect way to set the theme of the party. If only everything else had gone as beautifuly & easily!

I love you so,

Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: The Theme

Dear Em,
Last weekend we hosted your 5.5 birthday party with your little friends & cousins. Over the next few weeks, I'll recap the fun (& craziness). First, we'll start with the theme. The theme really ties into the venue (which I'll be recapping later), but ultimately it we gave you the choice for themes this year. You chose...

Butterflies!!

When you & I exercise together, your very favorite part is when we do our butterfly stretches. You ask me what kind of butterfly I am & then tell me what kind you are. Then you pretend that a butterfly catcher is approaching & flap your little legs as fast as you can to fly into a tree. It's kind of adorable & makes my exercise routines so very precious.

For the purposes of your party, you wanted to be a sparkly, purple butterfly. It wasn't exactly the most gender neutral party theme, but it was totally you. I was determined to make it work for you & all of your little friends. Butterfly Birthday Party...or bust!

I love you so,
Mommy

My...Our...2015 Birthday Adventures

Dear Em,
You love birthday celebrations, & this year I realized why more than ever. Our birthday celebrations & pampering & fun tend to also become your celebrations & pampering & fun...this year more than ever. My birthday fell on a beautiful, sunshiny, Rhode Island day this year. Since you've been on an adorable picnic kick lately, we made sure to fit in a walk at the Narragansett wall, rock tower building, & a picnic.

You and I also pampered ourselves with a mani/pedi. When I think about the fact I didn't get a mani/pedi until I was in my twenties & you've already had several, I have to laugh to myself a little bit.

It was a busy day that included things like a Parent/Teacher Conference, a ton of errands, dance class, & Kindergarten Orientation (OH EM GEE, how are you starting kindergarten this fall?!!), but we squeezed in some fire pit, birthday cake fun as a perfect end to a completely amazing day.

I couldn't have asked for a better day. Thanks for sharing so much of it with me.

I love you so,

Mommy

Throwback Thursday: Birthday Me

Dear Em,
This is little birthday me. It's possible we had just moved, & I didn't have bunches of little friends, but my mom always found a way to make our celebrations special...complete with balloons & a dog in a party hat. Ha!

I love you so,

Mommy