Kyla's 3rd Birthday

Kyla turned 3 on January 25th and we had a party!  I remember when Kyla turned one, we had our whole family over to celebrate.  Even though it was just our family, it was about the maximum capacity our house can hold.  At the time I said, oh, we'll have a party for when she turns 1, but then no more "party" parties until she's older and has friends to invite, etc.  WELL, four months ago Kyla went to her friend Julianna's birthday party and it was SO fun!!  From that day Kyla started talking about HER birthday party, we even started talking themes and who she wanted to invite and what she wanted to do at her party!  She choose "Mermaid Under the Sea" as her party theme and never looked back!  SO glad SHE is decisive!  It wasn't until mid December that I actually decided to go through with this!!  It was going to be pretty low key, only cousins and two friends...   then... THEN I was introduced to the world of PARTY BLOGS!  Here are some pretty sweet parties, check em out!  Carnival party How FUN is that??  How over the top is that??  Even a simple Lollipop theme can be classy and elegant.  This is one of my favorites for a boy, be sure to check out part II!  I was introduced by my friend Sarah (Julianna's mom), she was super helpful and mostly responsible for the awesomeness that was Kyla's party : )  She found the inspiration (TI) and I went with it!  Enjoy!

I made mermaid tails (wrap around skirts) for the girls.  I used Kyla's "treasure chest" from her room to hold the party favors for the boys which were beachy pails with shovels, filled with candy, bubbles and crazy straws.

The girls got a mermaid story book, jewelry, candy and bubbles.

The food table

Fruit platter, spongebob yogurt, capri sun, goldfish crackers, nemo and shark fruit snacks, pink marshmallows (a favorite of Kyla's), cupcakes aaaand

'sushi rolls'

Nutritious and delicious!  While they are, I really just thought it was an adorable food idea

Get the deets here!  From TI

I used my pink PB Kids tablecloth I use every year for Kyla's birthday, then got a yard of shimery, see though fabric and folded it up under the edges for the center.  Put the 'center piece' behind the cupcake stand, pearl strands on the table and felt sea animals hanging from our chandelier.  You can also kind of see in the background, we made a 'curtain' out of a plastic blue tablecloth and hung it behind my curtains to give the room a blue, underwater effect.

Now.  These guys were a labor of love.  I found felt animal cupcake toppers on etsy for a million dollars each and said to myself, "self.  I can do that!"  So I did.  And each one took about an hour to make and then I knew why the price was so high... and figured the demand must also be low.

But they're cuuuuuuttee!  And I love them.  And each one is my baby.

Luckily I took some pics with my phone since I did not get pictures of all the felt sea animals at the party.

Okay.  That's enough of that!  But only because that's all the pics I have of those : )

The creator of "The Inspiration" sells downloadable files which include the invitations, thank you cards, cupcake toppers, center pieces, chocolate wraps, and a picture to color.  I was all about that!  And the cuteness, of course.

Just printed on card stock, cut out and stuck to a stick.

Silver and gold nuggets

The kids played a fishing game.

We hung the shower curtain from Kyla's bathroom at the top of the stairs.  Each kid took two turns (with Stephen's help) tossing the fishing line (with clip attached) over the curtain.  I was on the other side and attached a felt animal to the clip and the kids reeled in their catch!   The weeks before the party, as I was making the felt animals, Kyla assigned each animal to a friend and every day she would talk about them and who they would go to!  So, I made sure the animals went to their rightful owners ; )

 I thought it was a cute game, though the curtain could have been much lower for the kiddos : )

The CAKE.

Okay, so Kyla is obsessed with volcanos.  When I post a blog about her love for them I'll add the video I have of her describing the cake she wants for her birthday.  In short, she wanted a volcano cake.  I was like, um, no we don't need a volcano cake, plus, I really wanted to do cupcakes.  Stephen was like, it'll be easy, we'll just stack up some round caked and cut a hole in the middle and shave down the outside.

1.  I don't even have a round cake pan.

2.  If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right and use the bundt pan.

Wait... I thought we weren't doing this.  Well... I'm not doing it without practicing first.

SO, the weekend before Kyla's party we borrowed a 10'' round from Kelli, I happened to have two different chocolate box mixes, Stephen made one, I made the other and after they were done we stacked the bundt cake on top of the round cake and wa-lah!  Volcano!  Well, Stephen 'shaped' it and frosted it, then wa-lah!  Volcano!  We decided to put coconut pecan frosting on it because if we were going to eat cake for three weeks straight we were going to like it, gosh darn it!

Then, we decided to freeze it, save it for the party and just not eat it... just make Kyla's wildest dreams come true and eat cupcakes.

Here it is!

I put a small bottle down in the hole and Stephen frosted the cake up around the opening.  We put pieces of dry ice in the bottle and added a little hot water, the effect, while not realistic, was AWESOME!  

Kyla and I were in LOVE.  She couldn't stop staring and I... well, you had me at dry ice : )

And then we ate it!  Haha!  And it was wonderful : )

 The German Chocolate actually worked out really well, it looked dirtish, or earthy or whatever... and I didn't have to eat five pounds of straight sugar.  It was five pounds of pure sugar with coconut and pecans... yuummmm : )

Lastly, the outfit.

I knew she wouldn't wear the mermaid tail for the entire party so I asked her what she wanted to wear for her party.  She said, "A mermaid tail... and... shells (while pointing)".

I didn't know what would go with a mermaid tail anyway so I decided to make a t-shirt with a 'bikini' style top.  I loved the idea of a summer pool party, but January in Colorado... it's never gonna happen.  I sewed on the stars (same sequin material as tail) and use rick rack trim to go up and around her neck.  I also sewed the rick rack into the seams under her arms and tied it in a bow in the back...

Like this:

I thought it was the perfect mermaid outfit for a 3 year old without being too costume-y (remember, this was a simple party)

The party was so fun, I'm glad we ended up doing it after all!  The thing I learned from this is that I really like being able to add the special details.  Even if I don't have a ton a money to spend, I do have quite a bit of time that I can make a lot of things that go into making the party unique (well, with others' ideas!  I'm not kidding anyone... I am NOT creative!) BUT I am detail oriented, so it was fun to add those.

Okay!  Colby's 1st birthday is in April!  And I already have a theme!  ... but it's gonna be simple ; )  I'm gonna keep telling myself (and everyone I know) that.

*Sorry so long!!  But really, I read blogs longer than this in my sleep ; )*