{ ice cream social birthday party }

7.23.2010

Birthday Weekend Day 2: The Birthday Bash

I love ice cream. I know, no surprise there. So when it came down to picking a theme for Oliver & Stella’s first birthday party it seemed like the logical choice – an ice cream social! Especially since in the near future I probably won’t have free choice on a theme when they are begging for a Dora or Superman party.

I got a little bit caught up in the party planning. Okay, a lot caught up. I’m officially party planning obsessed and if I could make money at planning parties, I would do it in a heartbeat. As you will see below, I especially had fun crafting for the party.

Once I had the ice cream idea, I needed to come up with a boy/girl friendly color scheme. It didn’t take long to settle on red & aqua – one of my favorite combinations.

My party planning love also ties into my love for paper products/cards. I turned to one of my favorite online invitation sites, Pear Tree Greetings, to look for an invitation that would be suitable for the party. Let me back up – I also got the idea stuck in my head that I wanted to make ice cream cone hats for O & S and take a picture of them with the cones on for the invite.

Ice cream cones turned party hats + almost 1 year olds = disaster.

Chop saw it coming, but I had faith. They proved Chop right. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t deleted the 600+ pictures I took of them over the course of days just trying to get ONE where they were both looking at me without one or the other crying. It didn’t happen. So I had to get creative with what I had, which was this (I photo-shopped out the background to clean it up – these expressions are what were truly captured in one photograph with both of them in it):

And selected this card option where I could customize the colors to fit the red and aqua color scheme.


Now, on to the good stuff – the party! I had planned to have the party outside but given the forecast of high temps and humidity, plus severe thunderstorms , we decided to change the location and move it inside. And you guessed it, it never rained!

Warning to anyone not interested in details of crafting/decor from the party: stop reading now, the rest is lengthy on those details!

A budget friendly way to make sure guests find the location of the party:
Old board sitting in garage rafters + craft paint and stencils

I was digging the banner making and couldn't just stop at a "happy birthday" banner. And everyone needs to know where to find the beer garden!

Found a fun tutorial to make pinwheels & scattered them around in mason jars.

And if you’re like me, you way overestimate how much paper you need for projects and still have some leftover. Rather than purchasing cupcake toppers, I decided to cut out "1"s and mini flags and place them in a slit cut into a straw.
My love of paper mentioned above also rivals my love of fabric. I ordered a few yards in the red and aqua color scheme from one of my favorite craft sites – Etsy (warning: if you don’t have 5 hours of spare time right now, wait until you do to check out this site).

I originally ordered the fabrics to make coordinating hats and bibs for O & S.

Interested in making your own hat? Tutorial found here. Say you don’t sew? Don’t fear, none involved. Only tool needed is my favorite – a hot glue gun. Something no one should live without.

And if you didn’t guess it already, I had extra fabric as well. Here is how I put some of the extra to use:
An ice cream cone t-shirt for the birthday boy.

Some swag for the front of the high chairs.

Simply cut fabric in strips approximately 1-2” wide x 10” long (no need for strips to be straight or perfectly cut) and tie around twine or string.

Keep cutting or tearing some of those fabric strips. Then go buy a $3 foam wreath from your local craft store and tie the strips around the wreath. Keep tying until all of that ugly foam is covered.

And then take some more of that extra paper and hang a little do-dad that fits your theme in the middle.

Yup, still more fabric and I love letters and numbers so I decided to wrap a "1".

I simply laid my number 1 on a piece of fabric and cut around, leaving extra to wrap behind. Then I heated up good ole’ hot glue gun and went to town wrapping and gluing.

My last use for the fabric came to fruition when I realized I was going to make ice cream cone cupcakes but no way to stand them up.

There isn’t much to say about this one except that it wasn’t pretty. Cardboard, exacto knife to cut round holes in top, wrap like a present, and hot glue!

Whew – that should be it for fabric.

Remember the old board above that I turned into an ice cream sign? I came across this beauty when in the garage and the wheels started turning.

I’m not sure when I acquired the window frame but I do know Chop has wanted to toss it a few times. A little red spray paint and it was the perfect way to display photos, one from each month of O & S’s first year. All it took was a few nails, twine, and clothespins.

The ice cream and toppings also served as great decor for the party. There was so many topping options but we came up with a quick list of our own favorites to have.

Note: A framed chalkboard is a great item to have around. So many purposes and the frame can always be painted to coordinate with anything!

Berry baskets worked great as containers for the “dry” ice cream toppings.

And mason jars for the liquid ice cream toppings.

It was determined after that based on quantities leftover, the crowd favorites were crushed oreos, M & M’s, and chocolate syrup. Common theme – chocolate!

And guests enjoyed some popcorn (freshly popped by Grandpa C) and strawberry punch with their ice cream sundaes.

Then of course there was the cake. I turned to the internet to find some cute ideas for ice cream cone cupcakes. I narrowed my options down to 5 ideas and Chop talked some sense into me and got it down to two.
Ice cream sundae cupcakes.

And channeling my inner-Bakerella, ice cream cone cake pops.

If you love cake, frosting, and chocolate, then you need to check out Bakerella. She bundles these ingredients into adorable little cake balls. They are SUPER easy to make (just be ready to get your hands messy) and there are tons of ideas on customizing them in fun ways.

And the best part of a birthday party for a one year old – their first taste of cake! We took advantage of the Lunds/Byerly's complimentary 7” smash cakes for O & S. I found myself without cake stands to display the yummy cakes and decided to make my own.

I found a great tutorial here and picked up a $3 candle holder and $1 plate a Target. I simply used epoxy to adhere the candle holder to the plates and let them sit overnight. The next day, I placed them upside down on cardboard in the garage and went to town with the spray paint – one red and one aqua. The top of the plate stays untouched with spray paint and you are left with nice, colorful cake stands!

Every cake needs a little banner.

When we brought them their cakes, they both seemed a little unsure.

Stella continued to be a little dainty and didn't make it far into her cake.

While Oliver had no issues digging right in.

We were blessed to have our amazing family and friends, including 6 sets of twins (kicking myself for not getting a picture!), at the party to help us celebrate.

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate O & S’s first birthday and cheers to the next year!

Photos by Antonio Rodriguez

{ first year photos }

(playing catch up from a few weeks ago)
7.22.2010
Birthday Weekend Day 1: First Year Photos

It wasn't purposeful but we were literally able to catch moments of Oliver & Stella's first birthday with their first year photography session. I was the very lucky winner of a Facebook drawing by local photographer, Hillary Wallace. For those of you who haven't heard of her, you should check out her work. She is sweet, patient, and of course, an amazingly talented photographer.

But, I digress. We spent the morning of Oliver & Stella's birthday enjoying their favorite breakfast, banana pancakes. Following morning naps, we headed to the splash pad up the road to enjoy the beautiful (but of course hot) weather. In the afternoon we headed to Hillary's studio in the warehouse district. It was a light and airy space and we had a ton of fun trying to capture O & S's personalities. And as they say, pictures speak a thousand words.

Miss Stella

Mr. Oliver

The Twins

2 + 2 = 4

{ makeover }

I'm not sure what inspired me, but I got an itch to do a makeover of the blog. Just ask Chop.....it somewhat consumed every free moment of mine for days.

And the reason it consumed me is because I know next to nothing about computers, creating headers, or overhauling a blog. Thank goodness for internet tutorials and friends that do have the knowledge. My friend Jessica, who has a wonderful blog that can be found here, convinced me that editing and writing HTML code was not going to make my head spin. And that I wasn't going to blow up my computer by trying to edit a file in Photoshop.

It is always nice to have other's input on this kind of thing. So rather than turning to two one year olds, I would ask Chop what he thought of certain layouts, color, fonts. And after a few days this is how one conversation went:

Me: "Hey, can you come here and look at this?"
Chop (from the other room): "Huh?"
Me: "Come here and tell me which layout you like better."
Chop (still in the other room): "I like the first one."
Me: "But you didn't even look at them."
Chop: "It doesn't matter, I still like the first one."

So after some time and patience (sprinkled with a little bit of input from Chop), voila - this is what I ended up with!

But now that O & S are one year olds and the first year baby book is complete, it seems as though each month (and day) might not be such a milestone. Since the blog in the past year has mainly focused on them, we might switch it up every so often and add random tidbits from all areas of our life. Think crafting, restaurants/food, projects, running, Gophers, beer (Chop made me add those last two). But don't worry, I will probably continue to post a ridiculous amount of pictures and stuff about the twins.

And like most moms, I've got a long laundry list of other things I want to do: cook more (shouldn't be hard since once a week would be an improvement), volunteer, read, get back into shape, and the list goes on......and on. But at the top of the list is to learn how to use my camera and improve my photography skills. Hopefully with a little time and maybe a class or two, you will see improvement in the photos I post on the blog. Wish me luck, I've got my work cut out for me!

Oh, and hang tight for some other posts coming soon......I've got A LOT of catching up to do from the birthday weekend festivities. Think first year photos, birthday party, and baptism!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

July was a HOT month and this past weekend was no different. My favorite weatherman Paul Douglas reported that there were 98 hours of dew points greater than 75 in the Twin Cities in July. The 30 year average is 18. Wow. 

It is hard to get out in the heat with little ones unless there is water involved. So, we had a lunch/pool party with O & S's friend Lena. 

 

During which Stella enjoyed running around and sitting in the wagon instead of playing in the pool. 

Then we were invited over to the Delaney's for a little pool party with McKenna & Audrey. They had a blast splashing in the water together!

Except for you know who. She once again preferred to run around the yard and drink water!

And even though Oliver spent most of his time trying to get his sunglasses on properly, at least he was IN the water!

Numbers Don't Lie

Over the past couple of months, we became absolutely convinced that Oliver was significantly outpacing his sister in the growth department.  There was no doubt in our minds that he was at least a pound or two heavier than S, and then we took them in for their one-year appointment.

Oliver

23 lbs. 3 oz. (75th percentile)

30 1/2 inches (75th percentile)

Stella

23 lbs. 2 1/2 oz. (90th percentile)

30 3/4 inches (95th percentile)

As you can tell, neither of us would be good "guess your weight" people at the circus!  We have two toddlers (we decided they are now too big to be called babies anymore) that are the exact same size.  Apparently, our little koala bear Stella is just better at helping hold a little bit of her weight when we're carrying her!

They were both also champs at handling the blood draw with no crying and the shots with minimal crying. The other big news is that they seamlessly made the transition from formula to whole milk. No more mixing bottles! And soon to be no more bottles!

Driver's Ed

Now that we are one year olds, we were all like "Mom and dad, it's about time we got our driver's licenses". They thought starting out in the backyard was a good idea and we were game for it. This is how it went.

S: Hey O, check out this sweet pink and blue ride. Pink is my favorite color.

O: Mine too. I mean, blue that is.

S: I think this is the best way to get on the motorcycle.

S: Yup. Perfect fit.

O: No, Stella. This is how you get on it.

S: Hmmmm. Or not.

O: Okay, lets try a little teamwork here.

O: Stella, you are going too fast!

S: You're too slow.

S: Sweet. Now I can get on my way. Catch you later Oliver!