Puppy Birthday Party

Well in typical fashion here is a belated post!

December is always a month to remember!  Especially when you need to remember to throw in a birthday party for a very special little girl in your life.

I'll be honest.  I have the hardest time sitting down and getting a party together for our youngest because it falls smack dab in the middle of December.  It's a tough time for everyone to squish in another party so I have been hesitant and we typically just go out to eat and then celebrate with cupcakes and our little family at home.

This year was different.  I knew I needed to get my stuff together and do something for my little four year old.   She had her own ideas of what she wanted her party to be like and she was excited!

She wanted a "puppy party"!  After all she LOVES our dog quite literally to pieces.

A couple of days before the party little miss decided that she also wanted a princess party.  It's a hard decision to make when your 4 guys!  So although it was far too late to go another direction I decided I would add a little sparkle to the decorations and see if that would float her princess boat for this year.

I did that by adding a sparkly gold polka dot fabric that I found for 50% off in the christmas isle. It was intended to be a fabric garland for the tree but it worked just as well as a table runner.  The puppy face balloons were something I came across on pinterest but unfortunately there is no link to go along with the picture I found.  

Since her party falls in december she has lots of extra decorations along side her puppy stuff.

I could not for the life of me get these puppies to turn my way for their photo shoot!

We quickly added some pink puppy paws on the sidewalk before the party guests arrived.

This cupcake cake was also found on pinterest and unfortunately there is no link associated with it either:(  I thought it was a great and easy way to make a puppy.  Mine turned out a little crooked but hey everyone could tell what it was so that was a bonus!

The hubs even offered up his face painting skills to turn all the precious little girls from school into pups.

When the girls arrived they each got a set of felt ears that they could draw polka dots on or whatever their little hearts desired actually.  The felt ears were glued onto cheapy little headbands except for the party girl who had spotted this fancy party hat that we modified into a fancy puppy party hat.

After drawing ears, painting faces, eating cake, opening presents, and playing a very quick and unorganized game of pass the paw(like hot potato but with a dog paw and doggy tunes), the party was a success. 

I think she had a ball! 

A Little Real Life Fun

That's right we do actually have life around here that doesn't involve construction.  It doesn't feel like it sometimes but we do and it's a great one!  Our first born turned the big Six recently!  That handsome ref right there is the hubs being a really good sport and officiating at the football birthday party!

We have had so much going on lately with building and decision making that the actual party snuck up on us a bit.  Thankfully little man knew he wanted a football party so we rolled with it.  The week before the party hubs found this goal post online and we got it on time!  

For fun we put black halloween paint under the kiddos eyes and encouraged the kiddos to wear jerseys if they had them.

I totally lucked out at michaels and found all this football party stuff: serving trays, tablecloth, and even some little takeout boxes that looked like referee shirts.

We already had the orange cones from a previous birthday party.

As for the treats I just used chocolate icing for the cupcakes and added some football stitching in hopes that they would pass for footballs and I think they did!

 These football brownies were actually little mans idea.  He loves him some brownies and we wanted to find a cute way to incorporate them.  I just made two boxes of brownie batter and baked them on a cookie sheet instead of in a cake pan.  I then stuck them in the fridge in hopes that I could cut them out with a cookie cutter if they were a little firm.

Thankfully it worked!

Along with the sweets we had peanuts and chex mix in the little referee boxes, pigs in a blanket and little mini corn dogs made in a muffin pan and lots of water and gatorade.  I don't have good pics of that stuff but it wasn't really all that exciting either!

As for the real fun...The kids played hard!  They kicked field goals, and tried to pass the football through that nifty little contraption that the hubs whipped up a couple of days before the party with some wood we already had;)

We brought every football we own and those little orange cones from his 4th "racecar party" came in handy too!  I need to find those race car party pics..that was a fun one too.

Here is our bitty baby that isn't so bitty anymore.  

Our sweet ballerina girl had fun too although she isn't really into playing football.  She wanted to dress as a cheerleader and didn't want the under eye makeup for sure.  I am almost positive she isn't going to have much of a tendency be a tomboy;)  I don't know where she gets that?

Action shots:

This is too cute.  I seriously thought when I threw out the idea that I could run to academy and get the hubs a ref shirt that he would say "no thanks" but he was like "ok get me a hat and a whistle too.  I have a funny feeling somebody may be a referee for halloween this year.  It's all about using what you've got around here.

The big boys had some fun too...

So we played and then we sang and ate..

Love this picture!  He was having a ball!

Then there were gifts......

We are so grateful to have so many friends with so many kiddos to share birthdays with!

One of my main missions was to get these kids to give me a team picture to remember the day by.

I asked the kids to give me their best football pose and well....this is what I got.

Not only were some missing but I see nothing here that really resembles what I was going for;)

This was a little more like it...a little.  At least there is a little "tude" present which is what I think of when I think football dudes.  You know like growling, testosterone and stuff.

So mission accomplished!  Our man turned six and he just so happened to get a fun party too!

She's Gonna POP!

Remember this?

It was the "welcome on in" wreath "thing" for a baby shower a few friends and I threw for the pretty in pink lady below.  That's right she is having a girl!

 We wanted to do it up all girly and fun this time around because she has two boys at home and hasn't had the chance to do the ruffles and pink until now!

The theme for this shower was...

She's going to POP

and we had fun doing all things "popish" for the special occasion.

On the sideboard below we placed the invitation that of course said 

"She's ready to Pop"

To make it festive we placed paper poms everywhere.

There was also a table full of POPS!

It was so much fun to see what kind of pops everyone came up with.  Now not everything was a pop.  You see that salad?  Well it had a poppyseed dressing of course.

Here are the cake pops that I made.  I will talk about these some other time I'm sure.  Pretty yes, time consuming yes, worth it cause it's fun, yes!

There were even all sorts of flavored POPcorn.

Below are the fruit pops that I made.  Seems to be what I do lately as you may remember from the fairy party post a few weeks back.

Oh and check out these delish pancake pops my friend Christy made..yummo!

To continue the theme...these were piggie pops.  I bet these could be stuck on a skewer and be even "poppier".  Are you gagging from all of my pop words yet.  I am a little;)  Oh and I could kick myself because I didn't get a good picture of the homemade mini POP tarts there on the right that my friend Kim made.  They were much better than your basic store bought pop tart for sure.

More tissue poms with a little girly touch on top.  They really make a room feel like a paaartay!

On this table there were lots of Lolli Pops 

and a little place to write a wish list for the sweet girl on her way.  You can find the printable here.

Look how sweet these are.  Can you imagine how fun it will be for mom and daughter to look through these many years down the road?

Oh look...another pom.  This time pretending to be a bouquet of flowers.  Fun right?

 Here is the sweet momma and her sweet momma.

 All of the food labels were made with a free printable from Amy J Delightful's blog.

Here is momma checking out the gift I made for here.  Post coming on that soon....

Love seeing the smiles on these precious friends faces!  Sweet moments in life!

This was so much fun!  It seems the baby showers have slowed down a bit in our group of friends so we had time to really play and enjoy putting this together.  There are so many awesome shower ideas in the blogoshpere.  Have you hosted a fun one lately?  I would love to see!  Share it with me!