millie's rainbow unicorn party

On August 26, our little Millie Jean turned 5!

This was the year for her first "friend" party, and she was set on a rainbow unicorn theme.  And incase you didn't know, I LOVE to plan parties.  I know many of you already saw these pics on facebook, so I'm sorry to be repetitive, but I wanted to document it on my blog too.  So, here are all the details:

I had a hard time finding a rainbow unicorn for the cake topper, so I found a plastic horse at the Dollar Tree, hot-glued a screw to the head and spray-painted it all white (an idea I saw on this blog).  Then I used my kids' crayola paint to add the rainbow-colored accents.  Since I really don't enjoy trying to decorate cakes, I decided to just cover the cake with rainbow Skittles, which was a big hit with the kids.

I couldn't leave the inside of the cake just plain white, so I did the same thing that I did last year with Adeline's Wizard of Oz cake - and made it a rainbow.

The food table

For drinks, we did rainbow-colored Sprite.  

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on glass bottles (even though I like the look better), so I just bought a pack of the mini plastic Sunkist bottles, emptied the contents into a pitcher and peeled off the labels.  Then I poured in the Sprite, added a drop or two of food coloring and added the fun straws.

The rainbow fruit tray, same as the one I did for Addie's party last year, but this time I added big marshmallows for clouds, which the girls LOVED of course.  :)

Then we finished it off with rainbow Twizzlers, Bugles (because they look like mini unicorn horns) and rainbow-striped sour candy strips.

I don't like a ton of matchy-matchy party decor, so I decided to just do these plates from Oriental Trading Co.  I ordered them when they had free shipping for any size orders, so they were pretty inexpensive.

I handmade her banner with good ol' cardstock and a color printer.

My favorite part of the whole party was the rainbow canopy set up over the table.

This was done with cheap plastic tablecloths, cut in half and tacked to the ceiling.  Most of the colors were at the Dollar Tree and the rest were at Hobby Lobby for $2, so the whole canopy only cost about $8.

Of course we had to decorate with unicorns too!  This little beauty was just begging to be the center of attention.

So I surrounded her with white ramekins filled with rainbow colored beads for the craft.  Pretty, yet functional.

I prepared the girls' plates ahead of time with most of the supplies they would need to make their rainbow unicorn bracelets.  This makes craft time go much smoother!

These silver unicorn charms were found on eBay.  I think I spent under $2 for 10.  And we already had the rainbow colored beads.

Rainbow Brite and her unicorn friends came to join us as well.

They stood guard over the party favors.

These bags were on clearance at Target for dirt cheap, and I just used our printer to make the personalized labels.

Inside the bags were rainbow unicorn stickers and rubber duckies from Oriental Trading and rainbow unicorn lollipops from Amazon.  I made unicorn coloring books by googling "free unicorn coloring pages," copying and pasting the images into Word and printing them double sided.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

 I also made this "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" party game by finding an image of a horse and printing it at 600%.  Then I just used marker to color on the rainbow details.

Millie had spent hours upon hours coloring and painting rainbows and unicorns with which to decorate her party, so of course we included those in the decorations too!

We had unicorn coloring pages ready for the girls to work on as they arrived, because there's always a few guests that come late and we didn't want the others to get antsy!

This sweet little unicorn sat by the entry handing out sparkly unicorn horns to all the girls.

These horns were made with sparkly craft foam, sequined ribbon, rainbow colored elastic and hot glue.

The beautiful birthday girl!

Millie with her cousin Ruby and big sis Addie, waiting for the guests to arrive!

Showing off the glittery unicorn tattoos that all the guests would receive.

As the guests arrived, they picked out a horn, got tattooed and then colored their unicorn picture.

Craft time!

Pin the Horn on the Unicorn!

After the first 3 girls got their horns so close, I realized that the scarf was see-through!  Oops.

Easiest way to transition between activities - play with balloons!

This next game has become my all-time favorite kids' party game.  I learned about it from my British friend, Clare.  The original version is called Dead Lions.  We changed the name to Sleeping Unicorns to suit our party theme.  It pretty much is what it sounds like.  The goal is to lay absolutely still.  The last one left without moving wins!  Of course, Chad and I loved this game (it was sooo quiet!), but amazingly enough, the kids did too!

Another fun, easy game - Statue.  One person poses and the rest have to match the pose.  The winner is the last one still holding the pose.

Then it was time for the cake!

Don't mind the dripping Skittles...  We were gone for a few days before the party, so I had to make the cake ahead and freeze it.  I didn't really think about what that would do to the skittles... :(

Licking the frosting off the unicorn's feet. :)

The whole unicorn gang.

 

 The best part was how much fun Millie had at the party.  Five girls from her kindergarten class were able to come, which was so great for her to get to know them better and help her to be less nervous for school.

That night we had a much smaller celebration with our family.

She was a little tired so we gave her some chocolate ice cream to revive her.  ;)

Adeline surprised us all by giving Millie her stuffed unicorn.  Addie has had this since she was 4, but decided Millie would appreciate it more now.  How sweet is that?!  Made this mama heart swell with pride. :)

She was super excited about her unicorn birthday card from us.

It's the little things, right?  ;)

This was probably her favorite gift of all - her very own Lego set!

Between this and her Lego Friends sets from Nana and Papa, she's been building like crazy for the past few weeks!

So, that was Millie's birthday.   A lot of preparation, but a ton of fun!  

Birthday #2 done.  1 birthday and 2 parties left to go!  

(They've already happened - thank goodness! - I just have yet to blog about them!)

my big little boy

On August 24, my baby turned 3.

He was pretty stoked about it.

I was a little choked up.

I just couldn't believe it had been three whole years since I'd written this post and held his beautiful little newborn self in my arms.

Although I miss his baby-ness, I'm also embracing his newfound independence.  Especially in the area of  potty-training.  He'd been using the potty off and on since last summer, but extremely inconsistently.  I was tired of bribing him and cleaning up messes all the time.  I had tried all the methods that had worked with the girls - going cold turkey on the diapers, going pants-less, using a chart, prizes, etc. A wise friend told me to just wait until he turned 3 and it'd probably be much easier.  And she was right.  A few days after he turned 3, I said, "Okay, Tate.  You're a big boy now so you're going to wear undies today."  And he did.  And guess how many accidents he's had since (2 weeks later) - 

Two.  

Actually one, because one of those was completely my fault (he told me he had to go potty, but I told him he didn't since he'd just gone... but he really did have to... oops)  And the other accident was just on day #2.  He's even been dry overnight every night!  I did make a chart for him, but turns out it was unnecessary.  He's been having fun putting the stickers on anyways.

So if you're having trouble potty training, maybe your little tot just needs to turn 3.  Worked for us!  And saved my sanity!  Now, after 7 years of changing poopy diapers, we're done for good!!! At least for our own children! :)

Another area of independence for this little guy is that he wants to do every single thing that mommy does.  Sometimes that can be difficult, but when it comes to decorating his cake, it's just downright sweet.

This was his small, "filler" cake.  For his real cake, he requested that it be a "football cake" (or as he would say - "hutbowl") which would be served at the upcoming big family party (which you'll see pics of later this week - don't get excited, it wasn't that fancy.).

He started out putting the M&Ms in a nice straight line on the left side.  Then he decided to try out his creative juices on the right side.  I think more ended up in his mouth than on the cake. :)

Mmm... mmm... good!

Some of his favorite gifts were his Razor scooter (thanks Nana & Papa!)

 And his new bike from us.  It even revs like a motorcycle!

And he wants to ride it every. single. day.  :)

Birthday #1 done.  Only 2 more birthdays and 3 more parties to go...

 Tate's birthday was the same day that Millie celebrated her upcoming birthday at school (since hers was 2 days later on a Sunday).  So she got to come home wearing this special hat.

Pics of her Rainbow Unicorn party to come soon!  

Sorry to my facebook friends who have already seen it.