THE KOOK TURNS TWO! (...6 months ago)

Adelaide turned 2! Well, 6 months ago. I asked my friend to take photos of the party because I'm such a frazzled host and after us both forgetting about the CDs any time we saw each other over these last 6 months, she handed them to me at her own daughter's 2nd birthday this past weekend. It was so fun looking at them and seeing how much the kook and our little man have grown and changed in the last 6 months.

After doing way too much for her 1st birthday party in the way of crafting decorations and favors, and baking a bunch of things, I decided I didn't want to bake or cook anything for this party. It was way too stressful last time and I also had a newborn this time around who was just recovering from a month of RSV (memories...). I bought junk food cereal, various milks (for the lactose tolerant and intolerant), tea, good coffee, and then the morning of hubby picked up a few dozen donuts (vegan and non). We had the party at 10 am and it was unusually gorgeous out for a morning in April. The sun was shining and it was nice and warm. It was the perfect day to have a little brunch with friends and family in our backyard. There's not much to tell you in the way of details, but what there is to tell, I'll share below.

INVITATIONS: designed by me
GARLAND: sewn by me- the fastest garland ever
2 POSTER: designed by hubby and printed at his work
PLATTERS: one was a gift from my cousin, a couple were cake platters, and I made the two tall skinny ones out of candlesticks and little plates
ANIMALS & PARTY HATS: the animals were from Michael's and I spent some time one evening making their little party hats
PLATES, TABLECLOTHES, PAPER LANTERNS: Target
FAVORS: mini cereal boxes and animal finger puppets from Target

P.S. Um... and don't mind our ghetto house. Yeah, I was a little embarrassed to put the table and decor in front of that wall that hasn't been painted over, but it was the best spot for everything. Remember how we live in a crooked shmooked house and remodeled the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad inside? Well, the outside is still that crooked shmooked house and hasn't been touched. Let's just say that I would be scared to walk up to our crazy little house. Luckily I live inside the house and rarely pay that much attention to how sad it looks on the outside. Maybe someday we'll do something to the outside? I don't know. We have so many other priorities. But all that to say, the outside of our house is not the beautiful backdrop for backyard parties that I want it to be, but we do live with a beautiful view of the country and friendly farm animals next door so I won't complain.

adelaide's 1st B.DAY BASH

It reads:

Adelaide Meriwether is turning 1. As we want the party to reflect her interests,

we decided to ask her what she would like the theme to be. She chose her two favorite things:

#1 was inappropriate

#2 was hair

As bizarre and repulsive as a hair theme would be, we decided that in order to appease our daughter, we will celebrate her birthday in the following way:

NO BALDIES ALLOWED*

Please bring your head of hair** and join us on Saturday April 30th @ 2 o'clock in the afternoon for some dessert to celebrate Little Miss Kookster's first crazy year of existence.

* mild baldness okay. ** hair extensions appreciated.

My little girl is one. I know everyone says this, but IT WENT SO FAST! I don't have a baby anymore, I have a toddler. I'm already freaking out about the day when she doesn't think I'm cool anymore. I'm sure I still have a few cool years before that. I'll have to savor them.

So... we had a party! It was all planned and crafted by hubby and I. The first detail to figure out about the party was the invitations. I don't have anything against themed parties, but I just didn't feel like a 1-yr old would care much if she had a theme. I tried to think of all of Adelaide's favorite things and the 4 that came to mind were breastmilk (hence the "inappropriate" invitation joke- I'm sure next to no one got it but it made hubby and I laugh), animals, hair, and being outside. I decided to pretend that the theme was hair because it seemed so ridiculous and I chose to have the party outside. With 30ish adults and 14 kids invited it's not like they would have all fit inside my teeny house anyway. After the invitations went out we got a few people asking if they were supposed to wear wigs, but we reassured them that no wigs were necessary. To go along with the theme, I made hair (the beards) and hare favors--- and that's where the theme ended.

Party prep took a month of nights since I was determined to make everything myself and as inexpensive as possible. The guest of honor would rarely let me craft during the day so after she went to bed, I got out my crafting supplies and spent hours with Psych on Netflix streaming. As far as decor, I made everything based on inspiration from around the blogosphere and pinterest. I didn't go by any tutorials as everything was pretty self-explanatory. The food was just all foods that sounded delicious to me. I didn't want to go overboard so I decided to do a cake in leu of cupcakes and I had been dying to try cake balls for a while so I decided this was the perfect opportunity. The cake frosting turned out quite runny as you can see in the photo but the cake ended up being delicious and I made way too many cake balls and had to snack on them for the following week to finish them up. Poor, poor me.

With a lot of help from friends and family on the day of, the party turned out great and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It was rewarding to see everything come together--- well, except for one tiny detail. We had carrots to put in a bucket for the kids to feed all the horses that live on the other side of our fence, but the horses were all gone for the day! Luckily we had other activities for the kids. I got hula hoops and sidewalk chalk from Dollar Tree and our stepping stones were decorated to the max by the end of the party. Adelaide also loved the chalk and carried it around the whole party. The cousins loved the beard favors except one who tried them all on before deciding he didn't want one. He was also the cousin to ask "when are you putting the music on for the party?" and "where are the favor bags with candy?" (He belongs to you, Ang.) A couple of the bunnies went home, but some were forgotten and still have to be delivered.

As much work as the party was, I can't wait for the next party to plan and am already thinking of excuses to get friends or family together--- home movie screenings, Saturday brunches, clothing swaps. We'll see what actually comes to fruition.

I've included the details from the party below. If there is any interest in tutorials and downloadables for the beard and bunny favors or decorations, I'll try to put something together. I linked up the recipes, but want to note that I made them all non-dairy so that I could eat them. :) If you are interested in my non-dairy tweaks, I can do a post including them as well. Let me know if you have questions about any of the details!

INVITATIONS: Designed by hubby and I.

TABLECLOTH: Lace vinyl from Joann's over a white plastic tablecloth from Dollar Tree

GARLAND: 90 feet of fabric with index card and Dollar Tree doily half circle

HAPPY BDAY BANNER: Dollar Tree doilies glued to the back of a Party City banner

FRINGE BACKDROP: tissue paper and streamers (I hadn't even seen this post or tutorial before, but this is the perfect tutorial, except my fringe was shorter.)

HARE SOFTIES: Sewn by me.

BEARDS: Sewn and designed by me.

FOOD: Strawberry cake balls with cream cheese frosting dipped in dark and white chocolate (generic cake ball instructions), Coconut cake with raspberry preserve filling and cream cheese frosting, peanut butter rice krispie treats, popcorn and pretzels drizzled with dark chocolate (not pictured), Mike & Ikes, Newman's Own tangerine and strawberry licorice, and Lemonheads

BEVERAGES: cucumber water, lemonade, Hansen's flavored water, and root beer