{ Let's PARTY! }

All three of our kids have birthdays this time of year. 

Jenna turned 3 last month

 and Chase just turned the BIG O-N-E! 

 

We had a small party for Jenna with grandma's and grandpa's from both sides and immediate aunts and uncles. I don't go all out for birthday parties like some people do. I love to see all these amazing parties and all the great decor that some of the bloggers that I follow do, but for me simple is better. Mostly because I don't have a lot of time and partly because I cant justify spending the dough for all the accessories and stuff that is needed for one of those extravagant shindigs. The biggest reason I would do those things would be for myself because I really do like to decorate and craft up cute things but these kids, for whom the party is for, could care less about what kind of cupcake toppers or banners or whatever is there to make the party beautiful they only care about the friends that are there and the cake of course!

So for Jenna's birthday, we just did a cake and ice cream party and I decorated the table with cupcakes and gluten free brownies, some beautiful hydrangeas, and a few of my favorite photos of our beautiful girl. 

She tries really hard to show three fingers but that third finger just doesn't want to stay up!

I made the little banner out of different colors of pink paper that I had in my crafting stuff and a little cupcake topper out of pink fuzzy craft balls and hung them from two skewers.

She loved her banner, which we actually hung up on her birthday and left it till the party a couple days later. She is all about cupcakes and all things desert so she was thrilled with the display of goodies on the table too. Like I said before, I'm sure if I had just layed the cupcakes down on the table and said we are having a party now she would be just as thrilled so really, the pretty part was because I liked doing it ha! 

Jenna is...

beautiful, smart, silly, feisty and sweet. 

She wants to go to school so bad and be just like big brother. She is a huge helper and a little momma. She is an energizer bunny, full of it all.the.time. She's our troublemaker and rule breaker. She brings true joy and lots of laughter to our family and we are blessed to be her parents!

For Chase's party we had all the same family members and we also invited our aunts and uncles too. Honestly, I could have not done a party and been totally fine with that, but how could I not have a party and then have him ask down the road, why his two older siblings had big first birthday parties and he didn't. That would happen, well, maybe that would happen and I would have no other excuse than the fact that I was being lazy! So...we had a small gathering in our backyard this past weekend.

For his party we did a taco bar- which is such an easy thing for a party and who doesn't like tacos?! If you don't there's something wrong! I kid. But really tacos are so.delicious!

I also made a cake which Mark and I decorated with fondant frosting (our first attempt at this) and I made banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -also delicious! 

We set up a Make Your Own Trail Mix station too which was a big hit!

I got almost everything from Gordon Foods. We had cereal, peanuts, animal crackers, m&m's, raisins, marshmallows, and pretzel sticks. I cut down some brown lunch sacks for everyone to have their own bag. Not only was it a hit with the kids but the grown-ups liked it too! 

The fondant frosting ending up being way easier to make than I thought it would be. I wasn't going to do it but Mark wanted to try it and prove me wrong that it was easier than I thought, and he did. We made marshmallow fondant copying a YouTube video that we watched! The little balls are rolled up fondant too. It was pretty tasty. Marshmallow fondant is the way to go if you want fondant.

The few details that we had were all DIY. 

I made garland to go across the windows above the table out of crepe paper.

This was extremely easy. Here's the breakdown

 

1. Measure out about 33 inches of crepe paper and fold it in half

2. Grab it at the middle and twist so you have about 2 inches of twisted paper

3. Loop the twisted part to make a circle

4. Cut from the bottom to get a fringe look

I used string and put it through all the loops and it was done. So cute and so easy. 

I also made the cupcake toppers and the cake topper circles using my friends cricut cutter. I used the cricut to cut out the happy too. Then I just glued them to some small popsicle sticks. 

Mark made some lawn games and a little obstacle course for the kids in the yard. I didn't get any pictures of them except for the giant marshmallow throwing at the bulls-eye. The kids all seemed to have a lot of fun running around the yard and playing + eating the marshmallows too!

Gift opening was eventful as can be for a one year old's party ;)

and Chase was all in for the cake smashing!

It was a great evening spent with family and friends! We sure are lucky to have such wonderful people to share our celebrations in life with and so thankful for them.

Our big guy is now weighing in at 24 lbs and 11oz and is in the 90th percentile for weight. He is the most smiley, happy, chubby, and easy baby. He has 6 teeth. No more bottles for this guy anymore. He loves to listen to music, play with his brother and sister and anyone else for that matter. He says dadda all the time and momma only once in a blue moon. He goes up and down stairs and walks all over the furniture, has taken three steps but wont walk more than that yet. 

How fast time goes. It really only seems like yesterday that he was born. 

We are blessed to have these sweet kids of ours. We will be celebrating Trevor's SIXTH birthday in a couple weeks by going to a baseball game, at his request. He is excited and we cannot believe our little guy is going to be 6. Talk about time flying. 

Happy Tuesday everyone and hope you are enjoying these last few weeks of summer before school starts up again!