Book Theme Shower.

From the day I met Lauren, I knew I had to throw her a book-themed shower. She's in the process of trying to publish her first novel, and has had multiple pieces published in magazines and on websites. She's a beautiful writer and there is no one more fitting than Lauren to have a shower centered around books!

Before moving to Denver I co-hosted a similar shower but seeing as it wasn't hosted at my home, and not wanting to poke holes in someone else's ceiling, my flying book idea fell short. I was happy to sacrifice my own ceiling to have my dream of flying books become a reality :)

Stacks of cloth bound books and framed quotes from children's books were all over the house. We got The Little Prince for everyone to sign and send home for the baby. We thought it was fitting since it's a boy coming in after three girls!

 Papers for BOY book suggestions to help build a library for a little boy.

I found an Alternative Name game for children's books on pinterest. Things like 

Fedora wearing Feline

Evening Salutations to the Celestial Orb

were translated by guests into Cat in the Hat and Goodnight Moon.

Blank board books and sharpies were turned into personalized books for baby Gillespie. 

I think the final versions included

"Why the Y" (as in BYU)

"What Little Boys are Made Of"

"ABC's"

"Little Boy Advice"

"Feelings"

"What to Expect with Older Sisters"

The shower was in the morning so we had brunch type food. Each food had a book that matched..

The Stinky Cheeseman (Thanks Jenn!)

Pumpkin and Blueberry Muffins

 

Mini stacks of pancakes (If You Give a Pig a Pancake) were the cutest thing ever with Orange, Buttermilk and Strawberry Syrup

Mini Quiches - Green Eggs and Ham

Tomato Basil Tart.. SO amazing!

Fruit and doughnut hole skewers

yogurt parfaits - Fancy Nancy

lemon bites - Lemon the Duck

The cutlery

Instructions on the chalkboard

Pretty Flowers

[Bookmark idea seen here]

Finally we had bookmarks hanging by the door for guests to take on their way out.

It was a fun shower, and I'm so thankful to all the people who helped out with food and lending books, etc. We couldn't have done it without them!

Now to sit back and wait to meet this sweet baby Boy. We can't wait!!

Hello Kitty Party!

At days end of Stella's 5th birthday party she announced that her 6th birthday party would be a Hello Kitty party. She never wavered over the year and so Hello Kitty it was.

I used freezer paper and fabric paint to make these shirts for all the girls.
[idea/tutorial seen here]

 

We blew up and hung over 50 balloons above the food table. I stuck to a light pink, dark pink and red color scheme.

The birthday dessert choice. Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting and a gumball on top.

We made Hello Kitty pizza's and also had fruit with dip, veggies with ranch and pink lemonade for dinner. All choices of the birthday girl.

Stella's guest list was rather large this year. I kept trying to cut it down, but there was just no way to do it. So we had 16 girls total. I knew there had to be a way to manage all those girls and keep it under control and I think I came up with a pretty successful plan of action. We had 4 stations. We divided them into 4 groups of 4 girls each and rotated them through.

 We had the necklace/bracelet making table. With my good friend Linda manning the table.

We had pin the bow on Hello Kitty and making Duct Tape Hello Kitty bows (I forgot to take a picture) at the next station.

  

I found Hello Kitty slippers on clearance at Wal Mart for $1.00. We bought four pairs and wrapped them up over and over. Then we gave the girls cooking utensils and they each had 30 seconds to try to unwrap them before they had to pass to the next person. Whoever was the one to officially unwrap them all the way got to keep them. It was a hit!

Grandpa was in charge of the outside obstacle coarse. From what I hear it was the hit of the party. He had them crawling through tunnels, racing down the slide, throwing hula hoops over helium filled balloons, kicking soccer balls and who knows what else.

Finally after each group had rotated through the stations and eaten their dinner, we brought out Stella's cupcakes. Look at that face! I LOVE that Ryan captured how excited she was.

That's my Stella... so full of personality. What would we do without her?

Women's Conference.

"As women become pure and holy they will have a marked influence upon the world" -Joseph Smith

This year I spent my birthday decorating for our stakes (church) women's conference (theme above). When they originally asked me to be in charge of the decorating I didn't realize it was going to be the morning after my birthday. I do have to say that although I spent my entire birthday at the church, I had an amazing amount of love and support from family and friends. In the end it really was a great birthday.

 Ryan hung strands of lights and pom poms/lanterns/poufs all over the gym for me. The hope was to bring the ceiling down and detract from the basketball hoops etc. While the pictures show all the things I wanted to disguise, I do feel like in real life the lights and poms were indeed effective. 

 Each table had three glass jars. We primarily used ranunculus for the centerpieces. I thought they were beautiful.

We had white tablecloths and burlap runners, I LOVED the burlap.

We tied each end of the runner with twine, it was a simple touch, but I thought it added a lot.

We had a clementine on each place setting. My friend Tamara designed, punched out and assembled 300 tags with different parts of the theme on them. It was the perfect pop of color for the tables.

The table looks slightly bare in this picture, however, we needed room for the large salad platter, chips, salsa and rolls, and Mr. Photographer was gone by the time the lunch was actually served.

 This was the pouf cluster hanging above the dessert table. I loved the impact.

The cupcakes turned out amazing (I was not in charge of those), and Tamara and I had a great time assembling all those white cake stands! (Try to ignore the large teal curtain.. no way to disguise that bad boy!)

We made these tags to identify the cupcakes. Just a simple piece of ribbon with a label. Lots of people commented on the tags. I thought they looked lovely if I do say so myself.

Overall I loved the way the whole thing turned out. Given an unlimited budget and all the time in the world it may have been easier to transform the gym, but I feel like we did a lot with a little. I had the worlds best committee, friends and family who all chipped in and made it possible. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

Toy Story Party!

I'm so excited to show/tell you about Finn's first friend party!  I was feeling an immense amount of mom guilt because by this point the girls were on their 3rd major party. I wanted to make sure he felt really special. He is obsessed with Buzz and Woody and Toy Story in general. The idea of character parties is not my favorite but I knew nothing would make him happier. He loved the Toy Story ride at Disneyland so I decided to make the party a little more carnival and a little less character.

I found these invitations on a blog and was going to attempt to do my own version, but realized she had them available to download for free. I added my own red stripe in photoshop and printed them off. I love when people are generous.

I saw a picture on Pinterest of a party with signs similar to these and made my own in photoshop. I already had the aqua arrows from a newspaper bunting I'd made for a previous party.

I raided my fabric scraps looking for the birthday colors. I was lazy so I just cut them out with pinking shears and used mini close pins to attach them to some rickrack. My kind of project. Easy!!

I printed the subway art from the eighteen25 girls and brought down some of Finn's favorite toys for the entryway. Can you spot the birthday boy?

Here's a close up of the toys.

The table in the early set up stages.

We colored and put stickers on rockets and flew them with straws.

We hid 100 army men all over the downstairs and they went on a hunt for the army guys.

My friend Ashley lent me her giant board to make into a balloon popping station. They popped the balloons and candy/bandaids/confetti fell out. Notice the blue balloon that clearly had a slow leak in it

 

Marshmallow shooters were among the favorites for the kids. They were hilarious flinging marshmallows all over the house. I loved it when one of them dumped quite a few in, pulled the balloon back and they shot right in his face. He laughed and laughed.

We had Finn's choice for lunch. Hot dogs, chips, squeezer yogurts and lemonade. I made a big cake that did not turn out all that cute, and then LGM (or Alien Green Guys as Finn calls them) cupcakes.

Blowing out his birthday candles.

And finally, if you are still with me, here were the take home boxes (as seen on my cousin Jamie's blog). They were filled with Buzz Lightyear notepads, rolling stamps, stickers, toy story pez dispensers, etc.