Kitty Cat Birthday Party {Teenage Billie Party}

One of my favorite things that has happened this first year with A home is celebrating her birthday with her!  Last year we ate cake and sang for her and she didn't even know we existed!  So this year we obviously had to have an extra special celebration.  I though about doing a big glitzy Indian/Bollywood party, but it didn't seem right for a three year old's birthday.  A LOVES animals especially kittens, so a kitty cat (pronounced billie in Hindi) theme was a no brainer.  The word for three in Hindi is teen- I've been joking that I now have a teenager (she's actually really good at acting like teen- lots of eye rolling!)  So this is my Teenage Billie Party!

 

Invites: I just printed these out on card stock from my home computer.  I didn't even find envelopes since I was just inviting family.  I wanted to keep a little Indian flair with this party so there was lots of gold and glitter, with pink and grey or chalkboard accents.

 

Take aways:  gold buckets with your own kitten.  The kids could name their cat and make a collar with a name tag and a bell.  These "cats" looked more scary than cute to me (you get what you pay for when it comes to plush animals.  I thinks these were less than a dollar a piece) but the kids all loved them.  M slept with his every night for a month!  There were cat stamps and stickers and pink polka dot party hats for taking home too.

 

Lots and lots of pink and gold...

 

Kitten popcorn

 

I had plans for a cat shaped cake, but ditched it at the last minute.  I think I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I'm just not great with cakes.  Or maybe it just the frosting.  But probably both.  So I did a simple eight inch round cake.  I added raspberry sauce to the butter cream, which made it look like Pepto-Bismol, but it tasted good!  I made a quick cake topper bunting with paper straws, bakers twine, chalkboard stickers, and a gold paint pen.

Centerpiece: Yarn balls from my stash, lots of pink carnations, gold confetti, and gold jingle balls.

 

 

 

Kitty chalkboard art

Activities: I printed some kitty coloring pages from the Internet and put out crayons



 

Besides watching A eat her cake, this was my favorite part of the party.  I read that they do this in India on birthdays.  Pour confetti (I used glitter too) into a balloon before you blow it up.  After you blow it up, you pop it over the birthday girl's head so it rains confetti on her.  A was a little surprised at the popping of the balloon, but she loved her glitter shower!

 

Can't wait to celebrate so many more birthdays with this sweet girl!

 

Sources:

 

Gold buckets, plush kittens, cat stamps, cat stickers, pink popcorn boxes, square gold paper plates- Oriental Trading

Gold balloons, various ribbons, gold jingle bells, chalkboard stickers, chalkboard bunting kit, bamboo spoons- Hobby Lobby

Pink crepe paper, pink paper plates, gold star confetti, edible gold glitter (for cake)- Walmart

Gold stripe paper straws, crayons, gold glitter scalloped wall stickers- Target

 

Monster Truck Birthday Party

This little boy loves monster trucks!  So we had to do a monster truck party for his fourth birthday!

 

The timing for this party was really crazy for our family, so I didn't get in all the details that I had hoped, but things mostly came together pretty well.

Invites:

 

Food and decorations:  I kept the food super simple, and since M is my pickiest eater there weren't any special requests for his party.  We ordered pizza and served pretzels, goldfish, fruit and orange punch.  The decorations were mostly steamers, curling ribbon, and balloons in black, white, silver, and orange.

 

 

 

The monster truck tire cake!  I blatantly copied this from something found on Pinterest.  I had never worked with fondant before, so the result was pretty good considering.  I was a little disappointed how little it looked like the "inspiration" photo, but M loved it and the kids all ate it so all was good.

 

 

D made this amazing drawing for her little brother to hang up for the party!  The monster truck is delivering the birthday cake.  She let M help her color and paint it, too.  What a great big sister!

For the table I let the kids "paint" a big piece of butcher paper with some of M's monster trucks to make "tire track art."

Party favors:  Everyone got a trucker hat on the way in and a goody bag on the way out.

Bags included fun packs of crayons, a bouncy ball, stickers and bubbles.  I meant to print out coloring sheets to put in with the crayons, but they never quite made it.  I ended up sticking them in the thank you notes.

I ordered mini monster truck pins to put on the hats.  I also bought fabric markers and was planning to have the kids decorate their own hats, but we never got to it.

Games:  Rocket balloons and an obstacle course that involved maneuvering in these tire inflatables and monster truck bowling.  M requested pin-the-bumper-on-the-monster-truck, but I couldn't make that happen either.  Ugh!  We played it just the two of us the other day to make up for it. 

A special day and a special party for a special boy!

 

 

Sources:

All ideas came from pinterest, none original to me and too many to credit.

Striped gift bags: Layer Cake Shop
Trucker Hats: Capwholesalers.com
Mini Pins: Distinct Designs Unlimited (on Etsy)
Tire Inflatables: Walmart
Cups, plates, etc: Walmart
Monster Truck Stickers, bouncy balls, bubbles: Walmart
Crayon Packs: Target
Checker flag streamers: Hobby Lobby

Football Birthday Party

We have been enjoying a great football season this year, so it was no surprise when my oldest asked for a football party for his eighth birthday.

Invites: 

"Thanks for coming to my party" cups.  It helped a lot to do this party during football season- I was able to source most things at Wal-mart.  Like these plastic party cups.  The flame footballs came from Oriental Trading.  Personalized name pennants were made from scrapbook papers and attached to glow sticks.  The cups also held football playing cards I "scored" in the Target dollar section, Denver Bronco tattoos from Bed, Bath and Beyond,  and foil wrapped chocolate footballs.

 

The spread:  I started with generic football colors green, white and brown, but used plenty of blue and orange because we are Broncos fans around here!

Plates, napkins, paper bowls, cupcake wrappers all from Wal-mart...

 

I used a football themed card stock sticker pack from my local scrapbook store to dress up the cupcakes and individual cake for I...

 

Yum! Chocolate covered strawberry footballs.  I think I ate half of these by myself...

 

We served store-bought pre-made cheese pizzas and added pepperoni footballs before baking...

 

 Soup cans covered with scrapbook paper for utensil holders...

 

Plastic yard line bunting and table cloths were all from Wal-mart.  I pulled anything football related from I's room for the party including this ceramic piggy bank (I think this was another Target dollar section find) and I displayed his new Broncos poster...

We were hoping to spend most of the party playing football outside, but it was snowing the day of the party. :(  So we ended up in the garage again.  My husband kept the kids entertained by making a quick  football obstacle course- run through the tires, tackle the punching bag, catch a perfectly thrown spiral.  All the kids got to put their Peyton Manning skills to test trying to throw through shapes cut out of a tarp.  I also broke down and bought a helmet shaped pinata from Target.  And I vowed No Pinatas! this year.

Disclaimer #1- my garage is never this clean...

 

 

Disclaimer #2- I have told my daughter that the orange and white skirt goes with her blue Bronco jersey, not the pink shirt.  And nothing goes with purple Crocs and black socks.  She just likes to do her own thing.

 

So football fun was had by all, even in the garage.  And our Broncos are heading to the SUPERBOWL (woo-hoo!!) so I am recycling everything for our Superbowl party. Yah!