Since I seem to be in a birthday mood with yesterday’s post, I thought I would share Cy’s last birthday.
His first one.
The one that happened almost a year ago and I never shared.
Oh well.
It was sooooo darn cute.

I was inspired by a friend’s beach party a few years before. It was such a great idea because breakfast food is easy to serve, and the morning start time doesn’t conflict with any naps AND all your friends don’t have to spent their whole Saturday at a baby birthday… they can hang at the beach.

Décor: The beach!!!
We borrowed an ez-up and used big tables for the food. Guests were told to bring their beach gear for seating. I kinda went with the tiki look (mainly because 99 cent store had a bunch of tiki stuff) and it turned out super cute.

Menu: Mountain of donuts, bagels, muffins, loads of fruit and some breakfast sandwiches. We had plenty of bottled water and OJ to drink and fancy pineapple straws finished off the table.

Favors: A bundle of sand toys!!

I took an Instagram picture of Cy at the beach and added a bit of wording (just like Eli’s last bday) for the food table and his party favors.

I added a bit of fun to a plain mini cake (thank you Littlest Pet Shop turtle, tiki candle, and palm trees) from Sam’s Club for his smash cake and we had a load of cupcakes for kiddos to devour. I feel like I did something fun with the cupcakes but I don’t have any pictures and for the life of me I can’t remember… baby brain.

I love love love getting a kiddo group shot at every birthday party. It is so fun to see who was at each party and how all the kiddos grow every year.

Were we wearing coordinating outfits?
Is the sky blue?
As blue as the aqua tees my boys were wearing.

We had so much fun and the whole thing was so easy to put together there might be a repeat this year.

Hope you get inspired to throw a Breakfast Bash of your own… beach or park or backyard it’s a guaranteed good day for all!

We were on vacation this year for New Year’s Eve, so we didn’t get to celebrate our traditional New York New Years Eve Party (2011, 2010, 2009,). My friend Rachael got creative and we celebrated Italian New Year’s Eve at 6pm Ohio time.

Rachael found this idea and I think we are going to add it into our family tradition list-o-fun! You take down your Christmas tree decorations and replace them with goodie filled balloons ripe for popping.

We hit up The Dollar Tree for some festive wear.

Some people liked it more than others…

And we ate pizza. It was Italian New Years.

We counted down with the laptop…

…and then celebrated!

Then spent a considerable amount of time taking family/group photos. (This picture has the most people looking at the camera… and I’m not one of them!!)

Dessert was homemade cookies and Italian honey balls. We sang happy new year to the tune of happy birthday and blew out candles.

Why?

Just because.

Then we finished up the night with the grand finale – balloon popping!!

Money, candy or goodies were in each balloon. I think it would be fun to have a special balloon for each kiddo with their name on it and a special blessing or prayer for the new year inside from Mommy & Daddy.

This celebration was so much fun and sooooooo easy to do!! I’m already looking forward to next year!

Year two of the Pirate Birthday theme! (You can see last year’s here!)

The whole new baby thing started to become more real for me as I was picking a date for Eli’s birthday party. Our new lil’ human is due 4 days after Eli’s actual birthday… but what if the baby came early or I was just to miserably big to host a par-tay? I thought maybe I could do something after the baby was born… yeah right! It probably wouldn’t happen. I really didn’t want Eli’s birthday to get overlooked no matter the circumstance of the lil’ fetus. Who frankly, I have never met. (Have I ever told you how it takes me a good 7-8 months to like my babies?? …No? Well, that’s a whole other post!)

Anyway, I opted to do a party asap. So the evite went out for the following weekend!

Here is how the it all turned out…

We started the day finishing up the cake decorating!

I’m huge on the whole homemade-with-love cake thing. But I’ve noticed most of the cake time is spent baking, trying not to have a lopsided shape, then frosting the thing without getting crumbs all over the place. (Can you tell I’m not blessed in the kitchen?) Now I buy a plain cake (usually from Sam’s Club) in the flavors/base colors I want and with their pretty writing, then I’ll decorate it for a homemade touch!

Eli wanted a big volcano. He got it! (brownie bites)

I did some cupcakes too – each with a mini volcano (pictured farther below).

The menu: Subway sandwiches, various fruits & veggies, pirate bootie and oranges, so none of our guests would get scurvy!

Drinks: Lemonade and water. I used my new beverage dispensers (thanks mom!!) from Sam’s Club as well! (3 gallons, $19.95!!)

Favors: I made some bags out of pirate maps, filled them with gold coins, pirate tattoos and such, then added a picture and thank-you note from Eli at the top.

Easy party tip: Take one picture and use it for everything! I picked a picture from our family date night at Pirate Dinner Adventure then used photoshop to add the wording I wanted. I labeled the sandwich flavors (pix w/ wording taped to skewers), the drinks (pix w/ working and fabric strips), and the fun scurvy oranges above! It’s functional and adds to the decorations. Easy peazy!

Uncle David came dressed like a pirate… it was RAD!

We beat the heck out of a treasure chest pinata.

And sung the birthday song!

I got the group kiddo shot… which I’m totally obsessed with getting at every event!

And you better believe the fam was in coordinating outfits!

It was a good day!!

Hot Hubby just turned 30!

We decided to celebrate by taking our friends to the Brea Improv for a night of laughter. We {heart} the Improv (remember how much fun we had at Ralphie May?)!! If you go to all the trouble of hiring a babysitter and have a whole night with your sweetie, why waste it sitting silently at the movies when you can get a lil’ dressed-up and whoop it up at a live performance… you know interacting with real people.

Remember?

That thing we did to keep up with our friends before Facebook?

Of course I whipped up a homemade birthday cake…

Getting to the Improv a little early is a must! You’ll get better seats and enjoy some dinner. The food is great and it’s decently priced. Which is awesome because there is a 2 item minimum!

We were already laughing before the show because 2 of our guests had on the same sweater. Who knew Men’s Wearhouse was so popular!??

We said no gifties in the invite and one our our friends gave Brad a gift card to In-N-Out Burger! We were cracking up!!

After dinner the opener/MC Jonny Loquasto killed it. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breath! He has monthly shows at the Brea Improv and I highly recommend you go check one out. I’m sure we’ll be going soon, so we can make it a double date.

The main comedian was Sebastian Maniscalco! So funny!!! So so so funny! We loved every second of his performance. This was one of my favorite bits because of my great love for finding deals at ROSS… 

(side note – after seeing these pix I joined this crazy boot camp. More on that soon!)

Of course I got a group shot!!

We had so much fun!

Thank you to all our friends who made this night so memorable!

Thank you Brea Improv for hosting us for the par-tay!

I have a friend named Kristen (she took our Xmas card pictures).

We’ve known each other since college…

(scanned straight from my scrapbook!!)

Her birthday is 10-10. This last year it was 10-10-10! How fun is that? She threw a great party. In fact, she throws the best birthday parties in Orange County.

What you don’t believe me??

That’s OK. I’ll prove it.

Tomorrow!

Kristen will be guest posting here with recaps of her girls’ birthday parties. (I mentioned this in my New Years resolution post!)

Here are some of the few shots I have of her 10-10-10 birthday. I wish I had more pictures to share with you!

Check back tomorrow for Kristen’s guest post!

Have you heard about the book Pinkalicious? It’s adorable and this month we were invited to a Pinkalicious birthday party. There was only one requirement for the party – guests must wear pink!!

I love a good party theme. Add a clothing challenge and I get all tingly! I whipped up this awesome tee for my boys. Don’t you love it!?!? (Is my hubby a good sport, or what?)

The birthday girl was Pinkalicious to the 10th degree, complete with pink cupcakes, just like in the story!

This was the first time I got to read the Pinkalicious book. It really is cute and I know Cora Jane would love to own in (hint hint Nannie or Yaya).

Cyrus is still in matching denial…

Of course I can’t forget to show a pic of my own Pinkalicious cutie, who ate her weight in watermelon…

Real Men Wear Pink tees will be available soon at Eli’s Lids!!

We are doing birthday flashback series because I’m such a slacker and didn’t post right after the events.

I’ll take you back to February for Cora Jane’s 2nd bday…

Cora Jane started her day with a Starbucks smoothie… her favorite…

February is a really rainy month in So Cal so we always struggle to find an indoor and affordable place for a party. Chick-fil-a has a great indoor play area and I discovered their parties are VERY affordable too! Her theme was purple and yellow flowers. I was able to drop off the decorations and favors the night before and Chick-fil-a provided plates tablecloths and balloons in our colors! We walked in the next morning to a party-ready place… (they added balloons to the chairs just after this picture)

Favors were flower bubble wands/trays in yellow and purple in big flower pots.

(I love using favors as centerpieces.)

My cousins, me and Cy in my belly…

My fave fare are fries dipped in the Chick-fil-a sauce. Yum… (ps I’m a dork)

The whole party including the party trays to feed all the kiddos was only $130!! Have I mentioned that a party at Chick-fil-a includes a friendly party host AND an appearance from the famous cow…

Cora Jane made that funny face during the b-day song again…

The family shot to record our color coordinating outfits…

The kiddo group shot. Only half the kiddos are crying, including the birthday girl!

We came home to open presents and it was someone’s idea to break out the cookie dough… (Auntie Olivia)

Then someone was feeding the children a regular supply… (Auntie Sarah)

Cora Jane loved throwing the tissue paper from her gifties…

I haven’t posted about some big events around here: Eli’s bday, Cora’s bday and Cy’s actual birth. It’s one of those things where you want to spend some time on it, so you put it off till you actually have time, but you never have time, so it never gets done. (Does that make sense?) I’m sure that never happens to you but it happens to me daily. REALLY!

So I’m doing it now!

Right now…

If you’re new around here you may not know that I’m big on matching coordinating the family’s outfits for parties… or anytime we are out together. I’ve even been known to match us to a party theme we are going to… yes I’m that lame.

Boys in aqua. Girls in purple. Kiddos in Eli’s Lids Pirate tees.Everybody knows Eli is obsessed with all things pirate. (Arrgh!) And this year’s Tall Ships Festival in Dana Point was his bday weekend. Some call it coincidence. We call it destiny! (Arrgh!)

We gathered at Thunderbird Park in Dana Point to break some bread, (aka eat cake) then guests had the option to hit up the Festival. (Arrgh!)

(More about the cake in a few days!) 

You know you have awesome cousins when they come to every kiddo bday party even though they are cool and have better things to be doing on a Saturday afternoon don’t have kiddos. My kiddos adore them and they are cuties to boot… Guess who Cora Jane loves the most? You know that annoying mom who insists on getting every child together for a huge group shot at EVERY gathering???

That’s me. (Arrgh!)

I will admit, it’s kind of a pain… but so worth it later. Who knows, these could be part of a wedding slideshow someday. Not that I’m pro arranged marriages or anything… but I totally am. Not really… really… now you’ll never know!

I mean, look at all the little pirates saying Arrgh…  My friends and I are very good at making babies. (Take a look at last year’s group shot) Here are the kiddos who couldn’t sit up for the group shot…

Eli’s favorite giftie was from Nannie. The pirate pillowcase (which she made) was the wrapping paper! The gift? Pirate stuff, of course! (Arrgh!) 

More birthday updates coming next time…