Birthday Par-tay!

A little over a month ago, we had a super-fun birthday bash for Brianna and Brenson. Generally, I try to blog in chronological order, but that has recently gone out the window (especially considering I have yet to blog about our Disney vacation . . . that was at the beginning of February . . . oh well.) Brenson's birthday is on February 10th and Brianna's birthday is February 18th, so we decided to have the party on Saturday, February 23rd. We didn't get home from our Disney vacation until the 9th, and I wanted a couple weeks to recover from that and get ready for the party. It ended up working out perfectly for us! Oh, and I debated just a bit about whether to have two parties or a joint party, but since their birthdays are only 8 days apart, a joint party just made the most sense.

Here is the invitation . . . with address and phone number edited out, of course! I actually had kind of a hard time finding something that was gender neutral and for two kids and NOT for twins (most of the twin invites had one big number on them somewhere and obviously my kids were turning two different ages). I did end up loving this one, though!

I decided to do brown with colors as the "theme" this year. And, since that's not too common, I ended up making most of the decorations myself. I really enjoy that sort of thing, so I didn't mind! Here is the birthday banner I made for the opening between the living room and the kitchen/dining room:

Then, I made a "station" for each child that had a banner with their name, a large number of the age they turned, and some of my favorite photos of them. Here is Brianna's station:

And here is Brenson's station:

Above Brenson's station, I hung all of his monthly photos with his giraffe. It's so fun to see them all together and see how much he's really changed and grown in one short year!

A closer look of the lower part of his station:

My sister is really good at making these tissue poms and made these for the middle of the living room. So fun!

We had a smash cake for Brenson since it was his first birthday, so I made a special spot for him to sit while he ate his cake.

Here is a closer look at his high chair banner and party hat I made him. We completely forgot to put the hat on him while he was eating his cake . . . boo!

Brianna was SUPER excited on the morning of the party. She loved her station!

For the kitchen, I made this fun pennant banner, bought colorful napkins, plates, etc, and bought colorful cupcakes. All the colors made the table pretty cute!

My friend's mom has a bakery out of her home, and she makes cakes and cookies as a side business. So, my friend made these cupcake cookies for us that we gave out as favors to all our guests.

Brenson's smash cake was so cute, although it was BIG for a smash cake. It was only 5 inches in diameter, but it was tall. We brought the colorful mickey confetti back from Disney World :-).

Another view of the pennant banner:

We did serve party food as well, but it was all on our kitchen counter tops and I didn't get a photo.

While browsing Pinterest one day, I saw this wreath and just loved it. So, I made one for our party. It was extremely simple to make, and I love how it turned out! For the felt flowers, I used a cd as a circle template. I just grabbed one out of the drawer and it turned out to be U2's Greatest Hits. A proud day for Bono, no doubt :-).

My sweet little birthday babies . . . my sister took this photo and I couldn't believe her luck! I think it was her first attempt.

I invited quite a few people to our little shindig, thinking that there would several not able to come. Well, we ended up having a little over 40 people here! Our house is just under 1300 square feet, so 40 people definitely filled it up! I did have a lot of outside activities planned - and despite the colder than normal temps - we had a fun day with lots of outside play!

 Brianna and her cousin/BFF Chloe Jo:

My parents were able to join us for the festivities:

I adore this family photo!

These are most of our friends that were able to join us . . . minus one or two that hadn't arrived yet. It was pretty crazy :-).

                            

One game we played was Pin the Nose on Mickey. We brought back the Mickey Mouse banner from Disney World, and I cut out little noses from black cardstock for the children to "pin" on him. Brianna is blindfolded and ready for her turn in this photo:

Part of the party crowd:

Another shot of the crowd:

After Pin the Nose on Mickey, we went outside for a bit of pinata bashing! Since most of the kiddos were younger than 5, I didn't blindfold them.

Brianna was so cute hitting the pinata!

Chris had to help Chloe Jo . . . she was a bit timid.

Our niece, Abby, is a softball player and ended up being the one to bust it open. She's also 8 years old :-).

The kids were HILARIOUS after the pinata busted. They were little scavengers picking up as much candy as they could hold. A few of them had already taken off to play on our swingset, but there was plenty of candy for everyone!

Brianna immediately put a sucker in her mouth and hoarded a handful :-).

We all came back inside and sang Happy Birthday to Brenson. He reallllllly wanted to touch the flame on his candle. Eeeek.

After we removed the candle, I told him to dig in. He was totally unsure about this.

I finally had to take his hand and put it in the cake for him!

We also sang Happy Birthday to Brianna, and she blew out her candle before we were even half-way through the song. She immediately dug in to her cupcake!

Brenson was being so cute with his cake!

It didn't take him long to really dig in . . . and then OH MY the mess.

Girl-child loves some frosting!

Look at those hands. Cringe. :-)

This may be my favorite photo from the whole day. I adore it!

After cake/cupcakes, most of the kids went outside to play. We have a 1/2 acre sized yard, lots of outside toys, and a swingset complete with monkey bars, a slide, and a teetertotter swing. I was thrilled the weather warmed up enough for the kids to play outside, and was just going to let them be for as long as they wanted. However, someone had a different idea and called all the kids in so we could do gifts. UGH. This did not really make me happy, especially after it turned into the biggest chaotic mess anyone had ever seen.

Bren was totally overwhelmed by the gift opening. However, so was I, so I totally didn't blame him.

After Brianna opened her first gift, most of the kids just jumped in and started tearing into the presents. Paper was flying EVERYWHERE. I was trying to help Bren and Chris was helping Brianna, but gifts were being opened all around us faster than we could control. It was CRAZY.

The worst part is that after everything was said and done, I had NO IDEA who had given what to my kiddos. That made me really sad.

There were just SO MANY presents and kids and I'm not sure this part of the party was that enjoyable for my kids at all.

I never said anything to Brianna about it, but a few days later she said something to me about all the other kids opening her presents. I asked her if she was okay with that, and she said yes. I'm glad it didn't upset her. I didn't tell her how irritated I was about it because I want her to learn that sometimes things don't go how we plan and that is okay. However, I DID tell her that when we go to other peoples' parties, it is nice to watch other kids open presents, but NOT nice to open them for them.

My college besties were able to be there to celebrate with us. So special! I love this photo of us and our babies!

After our party guests left, I put the kids down for a nap and then we just let them play with all their new toys for the rest of the evening. Brenson was WAY more interested in playing with the balloons than the toys. It cracked me up because this is EXACTLY how Brianna was on her first birthday. He played with them until we made him stop to go to bed!

I'm so thankful for all the friends that were able to join us for our special day! The kids had a blast!