Helping Others ~ Making Goody Bags for Birthday Wishes

In honor of Clara’s third birthday, which we are celebrating this week we deciede to make goody bags to donate to Birthday Wishes. Birthday Wishes is an amazing organization that plans birthday parties for children that are living in homeless shelters.

We have been baking cupcakes to donate for the parties for the past 6 months and the girls are always excited to help me make them and decoreate them. They also collect goody bags which they give out at the parties. I have been wanting to have the girls make them, but haven’t had a chance until now. Since we are not haveing a friends birthday party for Clara I thought this would be a great activity to do together and we were able to spend the money we would have spent on goody bags for her friends on these goody bags.

We went to Walmart and Dollar Tree to pick up all the things we would need to fill the bags. The girls worked together to decide what would be fun to include in each bag. It was cute to hear them talking about the things they like getting.
In the end we decided to fill each goody bag with:

• Silly Straws
  
• Bouncy Balls
  
• Mini Slinkys
  
• Stickers
  
• Play Dough
  
• Spiny Balls
  
• Pencils
  
• Bubbles
  

I set everything up on our low folding table, which was the perfect height for clara to be able to take a bag and then walk around the table and pick one thing from each container to put into the bag.

The girls worked together to put all of the bags together. They were careful to check when they were finished that each bag had everything because they didn’t want anyone to miss out on anything.

Clara was so proud of her finished goody bag, she was actually able to put them all together on her own. I just helped her tie the twist tie to close it.

Together we made 25 goody bags to donate to Birthday Wishes. I can’t wait to bring Clara to drop them off.

We actually had so much fun picking out the items to go into the goody bags and putting them together that the girls said they want this to be one of our new birthday traditions. I couldn’t be prouder of them for wanting to give back to others as part of their birthday celebration.

If you would like to find out how you could help out Birthday wishes be sure to visit their website and their Facebook page.

Check out some of the other ways our family is helping others and volunteering in our community.

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A Tie Dye Party for Emily’s 9th Birthday

This year for Emily’s birthday party she decided she wanted to Tie Dye shirts with her friends at her birthday party. My first thought was, that would be great if your birthday was in the summer and not the winter. How was I going to be able to have kids Tie Dy inside my house. Then I remembered seeing a way to tie dye shirts with Sharpie Markers on pinterest. After looking it up and testing it out a few times I decided that this was something we could definitly do and it turned out to be a lot of fun and not very messy either!!

I set up our dinnning room table with a tray for each girl to work on. In the center were all the Permanent Markers and rubber bands we had for the girls to use.

I gave each girl a plain white t-shirt and showed them how to roll and tie up their shirt with the rubber bands. Then they got to work coloring the different sections in with the permanent markers.

When the finished coloring, while they were still tied with the rubber bands I sprayed them I sprayed them with rubbing alcohol enough to saturate them, but not to completly soak them. The rubbing alchohol makes the permanent markers ink run and spread out over the material. It is really cool to watch the colors spread and blend together.

After about 5 minutes the girls took off their rubber bands and I hung the shirts up to dry. Once they were dry they should go into the dryer for about 5-10 minutes to set the ink or be ironed.

I had made Emily a shirt to wear on the day of her party and my husband came up with the idea to have each of her friends sign the back of her shirt. It is a fun keepsake from her birthday party. 

While they were taking turns signing her shirt I gave each girl a rainbow scratch door hanger for them to work on. They really had a good time with this activity and it lasted a lot longer than I anitcipated.

I had fun making these tie dye t-shirt cookies for the girls to have with the cake and I also indivitually wrapped one for each girl to put in their goody bags.

The part that I loved the most about Emily’s birthday party is that she decided that instead of asking for presents for her birthday she asked each girl to bring a pair of pajamas for her to donate to Jake’s Jammies. This is a charity that provides a comfy pair of pajamas for children that are in the hospital. When the lady came to collect all the pajamas that Emily collected I was so proud of her. I started to tear up as she told me how worried she was that there wasn’t going to be that many pajamas and how it made her birthday so special when she saw our coffee table overflowing with pajamas that she knew were going to make children in the hospital SO happy and comfy.

We always like to do a photo booth at the girls party so that we can get pictures of the girls with their guests. I was hoping to find a nice tie dye table cloth, however there really wasn’t that much available. My husband did find really cool tie dye print Duct tape which we used for a picture frame photo prop. With the pictures that I took I turn each one into a photo card and send the personalized card as the thank you for coming to the party.

The girls after the party with their finished tie dyed shirts!

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Emily’s LEGO Friends Birthday Party

Oh my goodness I can not believe that we just celebrated my baby’s 7th birthday!! 

Emily and Juliette have been OBSESSED with LEGO friends ever since they got their first set last year for Christmas.  So this year when we were thinking about the theme for Emily’s party I was not surprised when she jumped up and down  with excitement when I suggested we do a LEGO Friends Party.  I have to say this was probably my favorite party to plan yet, I had so much fun searching Pinterest for fun ideas.

The decorations were simple but fun and I absolutely LOVED the color scheme she picked out.  We made the Lego Brick decorations from card stock and cut out circles on the Cricut MachineEmily built her name with her LEGO bricks.

When each girl arrived they took a picture with Emily at our Friends Photo booth.  This is one of my favorite party activities.  I love having a picture of Emily with each girl and then I print them and use them for a personalized thank you card. 

I printed out a picture of all the LEGO Friends on legal sized paper for the girls to color and use as a placemat.  I also printed a handful of Lego coloring pages and put them together as a coloring book for the early finishers.  We were amazed at how long the girls just wanted to color for. 

Next for the main activity for her party we decided to get each girl a Lego Friends Set for them to put together.  I had a craft tray for each child to work on so that the pieces stayed somewhat contained. 

We had pizza and cake and then let the girls play in the basement with Emily’s collection of LEGOS until their parents came to pick them up.  Emily came up with the design for her cake.  The “7” is made out of Sixlets candies and I used a Building Blocks Chocolate Candy Mold to make the chocolate bricks.  She then added her Lego Friends as the final decorations. 

For their goody bags I used my sister’s CIRCUIT machine to cut out circles to decorate the bags like LEGO bricks.  In each bag the girls had the LEGO set they built during the party, a box of Building Blocks Candy, a LEGO sugar cookie that we made, their coloring book and placemat and hair band lollipops that we made for each girl. (Did I mention that I LOVE Pinterest!)

Happy LEGO Friends 7th Birthday Emily!!!

A Pinkalicious Party!!!

To celebrate Emily’s 5th Birthday she had all of her friends over for a Pinkalicious Tea Party.  I had so much fun scouring the internet for idea for this party and Emily had a great time celebrating with her friends.

The Birthday Girl all ready for her Pinkalicious Party

Our Dining room all decarated for a Pinkalicious Tea Party.

I used 2 tea sets, one set was my mother-in-laws and the other I received as a bridal shower gift. 

  

The table was decorated with the Giant Cupcake Birthday Cake

 

Pink Princess Wands

Marshmallow Cupcake Pops

These were so easy to make: Insert a lollipop stick into a large pink marshmallow and dip it  into melted pink chocolate.  Then add a red mini m&m and some silver decorators sugar crystals.  I wrapped them in chocolate lollipop bags and then we added them to the favor bags at the end of the party

The Birthday Girls Chair

We served bagels with pink cream cheese, pink lemonade and pink milk (strawberry milk).

Once all of our little guests arrived in their adorable pink outfits they sat around the table and I read the book “Pinkalicious” to all the girls.

Then they each decorated a white lunch bag with  stickers, markers and crayons.  Once they finished they also made pink bracelets.  I picked through all of our beads to include only the pink, red and white beads.  I was amazed with how long all of the girls worked on their projects.  They seemed to really enjoy this part of the party.

Next we served the bagels, pink lemonade and strawberry milk.  The kids were excited about having their own tea cups and we served the pink lemonade from the tea pots.

After lunch we went downstairs for a Pinkalicious Treasure Hunt

We filled two large buckets with rice, pink petals, pink pom poms and pink heart sequins.  Then I added in some special treasures for them to find.  Each girl had to find a hear lip-gloss ring, eraser, pink bubbles and a candy necklace kit.

We called the girls to come and they used their decorated bags to hold the treasures that they found.  This was a lot of fun and the girls really seemed to enjoy it.  Next time I would do it in a different container because some of the things were really hard to find because they went all the way to the bottom and they really had to dig. With 17 girls this took a bit of time.  But everyone had fun watching, playing and hunting!

Time for Birthday Cake!

This is one of my favorite pictures her smile is priceless, she was so happy the whole day.

 

After the cake the girls each went home with their decorated treat bag filled with the bracelet they made, the treasures they found in the rice along with the wand and marshmallow pops that decorated the table.

Each treat bag also included a clip that my mom and I made from YummyFelts            and these candy bags with the “True blue cure for Pinkititis.”

I found the printable topper from  Kim at SevenThirtyThree and printed them onto card stock.  Then I was able to buy individual pieces of candy at Party City.  So I picked out Green Fruit Slices, Green Lollipops and Green Foil Wrapped Hershey Kisses.  I put them all into small plastic treat bag (the same ones I used for the marshmallow pops just a little larger) and stapled the topper on.  They looks so cute and  were one of my favorite things to make for the party.

Emily’s Cookie Decorating 4th Birthday Party

  I had so much fun planning Emily’s birthday party this year.  After going to a friends “Baking” birthday party at a cooking place, I thought I could totally do this at my own house for a fraction of the cost.  When I asked if she wanted to do a baking party at our house she was so excited.

The day before the party Emily, Juliette, Aunt Christina and I worked together to bake giant circle sugar cookies.  I used a large round cookie cutter to make them and after they were baked they were about 5 inches in diameter.

On the day of the party I had small cake boxes that would fit the cookie for the kids to decorate.  I found really cute stickers at A.C. Moore that were perfect for this.  They had all different sweets on them and words like “Sweet Treat” and “Delicious”  They also used markers.  I couldn’t believe how long all of the kids spent decorating their boxes.  I could have stopped the party their and they would have been perfectly happy.  Although I am sure they are really glad that I didn’t since next up was decorating their cookies!!

I had Chocolate, Vanilla and Pink Frosting all ready for them to ice their cookies. 

   Next they each got a tray with 4 toppings.  Rainbow Sprinkles, Mini Chocolate Chips, Funfetti (they were on the top of the frosting containers) and crushed Oreos.  I also put out M&M’s and Mini Cookies for them to decorate their giant cookie with.

Let the Decorating Begin…

 

Once they were finished we put their cookie right into their decorated box. Emily’s Finished Cookie

Next the kids played, we had pizza and cupcakes. Of course the kids were able to decorate their cupcakes too!

For a favor I found these really cute giant coloring books, Princess and Fairy ones for the girls and Dinosaurs for the Boys with a homemade star shaped crayon.   And of course their giant cookies!

Emily said it was the best Birthday ever which made it all worth it!