Our two monkeys have birthdays that are 10 days apart. Though it was definitely not something that we planned, it turns out that it was one of the luckiest surprises we've ever had! ;) I know I'll be singing a different tune when they are 13 and 11 and wanting to have seperate sleepover parties two weekends in a row, but right now it means planning just one party: two birds, one stone my friends.
This year we went all out celebrating the extreme girliness that is our little family right now. Anna Cate was into helping me pull it all together and having her excited about the party made it my favorite one to plan so far!
To celebrate both girls, we combined Anna Cate and Caroline's current favorite things. Anna Cate is really into ballerinas and Caroline loves to play tea party so we had an Angelina Ballerina tea party.
When the girls arrived, they each got to pick out a tutu and mouse ears to wear. (These also served as part of their party favors).
There were crayons and coloring pages at each place setting for the little mice to color while waiting on all of the party guests to arrive.
These tiny paper purses were in the clearance section at Marshalls and were perfect for holding their crayons.
We had the party outside and the sun was bright! One of the birthday girls (ahem) was a little pouty because she said it was too hot and too bright outside in the sun. I wish I had thought about that ahead of time and picked up a pair of glasses for each little girl from the Target dollar section to wear for the party. (Thank you Baylis for saving the day with an extra pair of glasses!!)
After all of the guests arrived, they enjoyed their tea party. On the menu: fruit cups, cheese cubes, pb&j sandwhiches, goldfish and cupcakes.
We used bakers cups for the cheese cubes and fruit to make them easier to serve and more friendly for little hands to manage.
Instead of baking and decorating two cakes for the party, we served cupcakes. I found a picture of some cute cupcake toppers on etsy and copied the idea to make some to match our ballerina theme. (I took some pictures so I could post a tutorial soon!)
Singing Happy Birthday to Anna Cate.
There were four candles to blow out this year!
And singing Happy Birthday to Caroline.
Two candles for this little miss's cupcake!
The sun was bright and in our eyes. This was the best picture we have of Will and I with her. At least she is smiling, right?
After the tea party, we moved on to the ballerina portion of the party. We had some dancing activities for the girls planned out that Anna Cate was so excited about. However, what some may call a maypole, for us, was better known as the pole of mayhem and disaster.
I didn't do a very good job explaining how they were suppose to dance around the maypole and it turned into one big mess. Either all of the girls were lumped on one side of the pole or...
...they were upset and crying because their streamer had popped off of the stick they were holding. I'm telling you, it was total cHaoS and I think we have some if it on video. Can't wait to check that out. ;)
Moving on, the girls also got to dance with ribbon wands. If you've seen Angelina Ballerina, you know that she twirls around at the beginning of the show with a ribbon wand. Each of the girls got to pick one out and dance around and those were a little more user friendly than the maypole.
They were a big hit with all of the girls, both big and little.
the aftermath
We asked that guests not bring gifts this year. After I sent out the invites, I was nervous about how people would respond, but all went well! As a "gift," the little girls brought homemade cards or balloons for Caroline and Anna Cate. After the party guests left, we sat with the grandparents, aunts, and uncles to open family gifts.
Meltdowns and maypoles included, we had a wonderful day celebrating our little ballerinas!
:)
I hope to share some tutorials and diy projects soon. We were able to pull the entire party
off on a really tight budget, but there were a lot of diy lessons learned in the process!
stay tuned...
