Orion's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Themed 2nd Birthday Party

My baby boy turned 2 years old on May 5th! We celebrated last weekend with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed party. It was a lot of fun and I loved how everything came together. Thank you to everyone who came and helped us celebrate.

The dessert table turned out so cute. I love how streamers make such cute but easy back drop. The table, table cloth, Mickey ears, Mickey plush, and frame we already had. I found the idea for the frame, cupcakes, and signs from Pinterest.

Orion's 2nd Birthday

Mickey cupcakes weren't too hard either. I baked a batch of vanilla and a batch of chocolate cupcakes. I used red food coloring for the frosting. The Mickey head was a full size Oreo broke in half. Mickey's ears were mini Oreos. Mickey's buttons were mini marshmallows.

Cupcakes

Yum!

We brought out all our Clubhouse friends to decorate the party area.

Simple red and black plates into the shape of a Mickey head.

Yellow napkins and white plasticware. Confetti was made from yellow, black, and red cardstock using a Mickey Mouse punch from Hobby Lobby.

Mouseka-Fruit and Mouseka-Vegetables

I loved the little touch the confetti added.

Red, yellow, and black balloons both add decoration and make for a fun, affordable party favor. I prefer to buy the DIY helium tank at Walmart for $21 and blow up my own balloons. The balloons can be held down with any simple thing to finish the favor. We choose bubbles and topped the bubbles with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse stickers.

The door sign turned out so cute. I found my inspiration on Pinterest but mine turned out much differently than my inspiration. I found 2 fun fonts and alternated the fonts between black and red. The rectangles are cardstock which I punched out confetti and then used for the door sign. After printing the white sheets out I used my Creative Memories circle cutter I have had forever and made circles. The Mickey head is a circle cut from cardstock out of black, 2 smaller circles cut out of cardstock for his ears, and a red circle cut of of cardstock then cut in half. Mickey's buttons are 2 white ovals were cut from cardstock with my oval cutter. "Orion" and "2" are Creative Memories stickers. It really helps to have all this stuff on hand already. The ribbon is red with white polka dots I found at Hobby Lobby.

Mickey's Mac and Cheese and Hot Diggity Dogs were served.

Yummy fruit water to drink. This time I did lemons, limes, and oranges.

Singing Happy Birthday!

Orion blew out his candle all by himself

Fun times!

Yummy cupcake

His cute little shirt I had made by an Etsy seller last minute for our Disney trip in December.

More cupcake!

"Sister, do I really have to open all these presents?"

Birthday Jeeping

Hubby celebrated his 34th birthday Saturday so we went Jeeping. Now that we're a family of 6 we no longer all fit in his Jeep. My mom watched the kids and we headed out early to conquer a trail about an hour from our house. Kelly Flats is a somewhat popular Jeep trail but we got there early enough we didn't see anyone else on the trail. Nate had done the trail before so he knew what to expect, some exciting spots like heart attack hill and the chutes but mostly moderate obstacles and some rough road. It was a lot of fun. I had to work at 4pm that day and was so worried we wouldn't make it back in time but we were home by noon. We're lucky to live so close to the mountains and we able to spend the morning playing outside.

 Hard to believe we live somewhere so beautiful!

 The view was better from the outside for me

 Up and over

 Hazy but beautiful day

Over some rocks

 And some more

 And some more

Fun morning birthday date!

Outer Space Themed 1st Birthday Party for Orion!

Yesterday was Orion's 1st birthday and we threw a big outer space themed birthday party to celebrate. I found a custom shirt I loved from Etsy which served as the inspiration for the party theme. I incorporated the primary colors of the shirt into the party decor. I also found a lot of great ideas from Pinterest. I even had a whole board dedicated to 1st birthday party ideas. I also used my Facebook page for my blog to ask questions about the party like whether I could use fondant on a smash cake. I started the planning and prep early since I wanted to do a lot myself. The results were great and we all had a lot of fun celebrating Orion's big day!

Orion's custom birthday shirt

 Balloons and "ONE" by the front door to greet guests

Dessert table with handmade backdrop, banner, outer space themed cake, and cupcakes with stars and the planet Saturn.

I love how the cupcakes turned out!

 For the cake I made a vanilla cake and vanilla butter cream from scratch but bought pre-made fondant and just rolled it out and used cookie cutters for the rocket ships and big stars. I free hand cut out the small stars.

 I used ribbon and clothes pins to display all of Orion's monthly photos from his first year.

For party favors I had custom cookies made with the photo of Orion's birthday shirt. I bought a helium tank and balloons and we attached a balloon to each cookie. Really cute favors for less than $1.50 per child.

Custom cookies

 We ordered sandwiches so we didn't have to worry about a main course. I then bought a bunch of fruit and veggies to serve with hummus and ranch.

 I hung these brightly colored balls above the drink station to add to the festive atmosphere.

We served martian punch (lime sherbet, pineapple juice, and ginger ale), water with lemon and lime slices in it, and rocket fuel (iced tea).

 Target had affordably priced paper and plastic ware in primary colors so I went that route instead of rounding up enough dishes for 50 guests. I love the coordinating paper straws.

 The smash cake ended up being a lot of work and was very big. I decided to give Orion a giant piece instead of the whole cake.

 He's had a couple tastes of sweets before but he doesn't seem to like them or even many bread products. I was pleasantly surprised that he dug into his cake.

 He may not have swallowed a lot but he sure smashed it up.

 The adorable birthday boy playing with a balloon (one of his favorite things).

After Orion got a nap and most guests had left we opened presents with Nate's family. Orion stayed interested most of the time and liked checking out all his new toys.

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate! It was a great day!

Mother to a Teenager

Yesterday my oldest celebrated his 13th birthday. It's hard to believe I am a mother to a teenager. It makes me sound old, doesn't it? I've been a mom for 13 years now and man, the lessons I've learned. Brennan is a great kid. Very smart, inquisitive, loving, and helpful. I know he'll do well wherever life takes him. 

Over the weekend Nate took him and his best friend for a day of food and fun at Dave and Busters (Brennan's choice). Yesterday we celebrated with dinner of his choosing (BLT Mac and Cheese), dessert of his choosing (Pumpkin ribbon cake - recipe coming to the blog soon), presents, balloons, and decorations. He said he had a great night so that's all that matters. As an added bonus he also got the day off school as we got a freak May snowstorm and school was closed.

 A 2nd Xbox 360 controller

 Classic Wynter and Brennan expressions

 The only birthday gift he asked for was money and he got a lot of it.

 Funny card the girls picked out for him

 I like money, cha-ching, cha-ching

 He also loves candy!

 Yum, pumpkin ribbon cake

 Time for a birthday song

and a wish!

Happy birthday Brennan! We love you!