Another successful party

This year the little lady had a butterfly birthday party and I had so much fun with this one.  I love parties.  I love entertaining.  I love to have people over.  Mostly, I just really love to do things for my precious children.  While, she might not remember turning three and that she had a butterfly party she will have tons of pictures reminding her that her parents went all out when it was their time to celebrate.  It is a celebration after all.

I made most of the decorations this year.  I think I have pictures of everything.  Thanks to Mark.  This was really such a fun party to decorate.

I started a few weeks ago making tissue paper pom poms.  They were time consuming, probably because it was my first time, but they turned out so cute.  So cute in fact, that the day after the party (no I didn't take them down the moment people left) a nice family of mud daubers decided to make a home in all of the yellow pom poms.  I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.  After Mark sprayed them and knocked them down some of those little creatures actually slept on our patio wall for the night.  They were so confused as to where their homes were.  Obviously, they aren't very bright.  I mean how big can their brain be?  The size of a grain of sand or smaller.  Funny, that something so small can make a grown woman run faster than ever in her life (totally exaggerated).

Next I made pinwheels.  So cute and so easy.  I wanted to do this for her last party, but decided to do something else instead.  I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with these, but we used them in the backyard.  They were a nice little accessory.

The big item was the bunting.  I have wanted to do this in the past, but quite honestly I was afraid to take on a sewing project.  I can sew, but if the project becomes to large, I get bored (it's the truth).  I decided at the 11th hour that I wanted to do this for her party because I didn't have a sign or anything.  I had a lot of things for the backyard, but I needed something else.  This was such a fun project.  It probably took me at least 6 hours for this one thing (crazy I know).  I couldn't have been happier with how it turned out.  I would do it a little differently if I did it again, but it was super cute.  It is now hanging in her room.  As long as it took to make, I wasn't going to just stuff it in a closet.  It ended up being 30 feet long!  I couldn't believe I had cut out that many triangles.  I just kept cutting and cutting.  It looks really nice in her room with all of her butterflies.

This is where I started.

This is what I ended up with.  Fabulous!

As for the food, I made some of my standard things, but for the kids I cut most things into butterfly shapes.  We had sandwiches (butterfly), rice krispy treats (butterfly), sugar cookies (butterfly, but a story in and of itself.  There is an art to the sugar cookie) and finally we had jello with caterpillars.  The first caterpillars were eaten up by the jello.  Man you would have thought it was acid or something.  I tried a second time and it was a success.

Finally, we had several little art projects.  Butterflies of course.  The first was with coffee filters, markers, a little water and pipe cleaners.  Easy and cute.  The second project was made with wings (an assortment of colors of Julia's hand shape), googly eyes and glitter glue.  I think this was the favorite.

The best part for the kids though I think was the bubbleflies.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I had butterflies at the house, but they hatched a little earlier than I anticipated and I didn't think they would make it until the party.  Also, I got to thinking that it seemed kind of cruel to nurture little butterflies only to release them and watch them fly for their lives to get away from little people swinging nets trying to catch them.  The bubbles worked perfectly.  Even the big kids loved this one.

We had so much fun at this party.  All of the parties are fun.  The kids always have a great time, but what was nice about this one is that it was small and everyone stayed most of the day.  We played washers with our homemade washer kit.  Another fabulous job by the husband.  We visited.  Isn't that what old people do?  They visit.  I must be getting old as I really like to visit.  We had a very nice family afternoon.

It was a perfect day for a perfect little girl.

Let me tell you about this watch.  We didn't give her this watch.  We did have it, but we didn't give it to her because we thought she was too little for a watch.  I mean she said to me this morning, "mommy, we need to hurry I do not want my cereal to get froggy" and two days ago after Jack made a noise with his mouth that she didn't like she said, "Jack, you are engusting."  Ha!  Do you think she is ready to tell time?  Well, we don't either, but I forgot to put it up, she saw it on the counter and decided to gift it to herself.  She just walked out of the room with a watch on her arm like it was supposed to be there.  Goodness gracious!