29Mar
Now, if I’ve learned anything about my readers over the years, it’s that you folks are nosy, nosy, nosy. And that comes from a very nosy person myself. I love knowing details about things. Where stuff came from, how much it cost, where the idea started. And I know you all do, too, so this post is all the behind the scene details from Gracie’s party.
I set the food up on our dining room table, and we moved our deck table out into the backyard under a tree in the shade. People fixed their plates inside and then moseyed on outside.
I decided not to go with a theme, and instead settled on colors – pink, yellow, and white. With the cake, cupcakes, and Gracie’s wings, though, butterflies kind of became the unofficial theme.
I found a lot of the decorations at Party City, like the yellow tissue pom poms and the banner handing over the window. But I saw a lot of the same things at Target for cheaper prices after I’d already bought everything.
Most of the food ideas came from Pinterest. One of my favorite, simple ideas were the clear plastic punch cups with ranch dressing in the bottom and then carrot and celery sticks standing up in them. It made it super easy for people to have their veggies and the dip without making a mess. Plus, they were really bright and colorful. I thought this was such a neat idea, and even used it later to give Bean some peanut butter with animal crackers. I think this will become a staple when I entertain from now on. So many options!
Another great Pinterest hit was the funfetti dip (also called the “Dunkaroo Dip” on Pinterest). It was super easy to make. You take a box of Funfetti and mix it with 1/2 a large carton of plain yogurt and 1/2 a container of Cool Whip (I used the fat free). Blend it with a hand mixer until it is combined well and serve with animal crackers or graham crackers. I put out animal crackers for the kiddos and it was a big hit. It tastes like icing!
My last big Pinterest idea was super simple, too. Rainbow fruit skewers. I bought a whole pineapple and cut it into chunks, green and purple grapes, blueberries, and strawberries. You just put them on the skewers in rainbow order. I had enough fruit and long enough skewers to do it twice. I thought they looked really cute, and they were one of the first things eaten.
I didn’t get a picture, but my Grandma made finger sandwiches that I put out on a cake plate. She made cucumber and cream cheese, chicken salad, and egg salad sandwiches. They were delicious! I also had lemonade punch in a punch bowl (a gallon of lemonade, a 2-liter of Sprite, a 1/2 gallon of pineapple juice, with floating lemon slices).
I tried one Pinterest thing that, sadly, didn’t work. But I think it was my mistake that messed it up. The Pinterest link said to fill balloons with water and then freeze them. Then, you put those into your cooler at a party and they act like ice to keep things cold, but they look more festive. Sounds super easy, right? It really was. I messed it up, though, because I didn’t give the balloons long enough to freeze. I did them at 8:00am the morning of the party, but by party time at 2:00pm, they still weren’t frozen. I also messed up because I used water balloons instead of regular balloons, and I discovered that water balloons are water balloons because they are super thin so they pop easily (makes sense, right?). Unfortunately, because the water balloons were so thin, it was really hard to keep them from popping…all over my kitchen! Bean thought it was hysterical every time it happened, and it happened several times! I will definitely be trying it again because I like the idea, but next time I’ll use better balloons and more prep time.
As party favors, I gave out little mason jars with Easter basket green straw in the bottom of them, then with Skittles piled on top of that. I tied a yellow ribbon around the top to tie in the theme. I meant to put a sticker label on the top of the jars that said, “It was SWEET of you to come,” but I just ran out of time. Still, I thought the little jars came out cute.
I used the extra mason jars I had to hold plastic utensils on the food table. Waste not, want not!
It was a pretty laid back party, which was nice. Pinterest definitely came through for me again, but so did my family. It was nice to have help getting everything together, but it was even nicer to be getting things together for our family and friends. Graciekins is a lucky girl to have such great people around her!
27Mar
Sunday afternoon we had Gracie’s first birthday party. We had a really nice afternoon sitting outside in our backyard under the shade tree. The kids played, the adults ate and chatted, and the birthday girl went to town on her birthday cake. All the makings of a great day!
Gracie decided to wear butterfly wings instead of a birthday crown. I think it was a smart choice. Crowns fall off, but wings are forever. I found the wings at Target in the baby section (next to some killer shoes, which I will have to go back for later…). I thought they were a steal at $5.99.
Gracie also wore sunglasses. Like the diva that she is.
My mom made Gracie’s smash cake and my sister helped her decorate a dozen cupcakes for everyone else. I loved the cake. She cut mini marshmallows in half and dipped the sticky side in colored sugar, then placed the marshmallows in circles around the cake to make it look like petals.
Gracie thought it was so beautiful that she didn’t want to touch it at first. It was less of a “smash” cake and more of a “finger poke” cake.
Before she got too goopy, we tried taking a few family pictures. Which NEVER goes well. With two small kids, someone is always picking their nose, or moving, or looking the other direction.
After cake, we played outside with the kids and opened presents. It was such a beautiful afternoon. Oh, and Gracie got a microphone. So, life was grand.
When Gracie started getting grumpy (she skipped her nap), we moved inside so that she could rest a bit, but she ended up playing even harder on the living room floor. We took all her presents out of their boxes and the kids played for over an hour with everything. It was the first time Gracie had sat with the “big kids” and actually played before. She’s such a big girl now that she’s one!
I remember when we were pregnant with Bean, one of the things that went over and over in my mind was how exactly it would work having a baby. What were the logistics of a newborn? What would I use? What equipment would I need? What would I do if I didn’t have something I needed? Sometimes, I would go on crazy binges of online consumer and product research. And then other times, I’d just lay on the couch, close my eyes, and try to make myself believe that first the baby would be born and then his suitcase full of necessities would show up by stork. Unfortunately, our stork got lost and no suitcase arrived. Which meant that Chris and I were left to figure out what we needed. We decided to register for EVERYTHING possible. What if I needed a pee pee tee pee in the middle of one dark and stormy night? I had these full on conversations with myself about how I might be scarring my child if I didn’t give him the option of using a pee pee tee pee. Later, I learned that babies can pee through felt just as much as they can pee through anything else, and it was really just a matter of cleaning pee off the wall or off the changing table. So, we found better uses for the pee pee tee pees. 
Over time, we narrowed it down to a few basics that we really could not have lived without. I mean, we loved the tiny blue (and later, pink) baby towels. And the bottle warmer was nice…the two times we actually used it. And having a beautiful bedding set made a lovely nursery, but we didn’t see it for about three months while the baby slept in our bedroom. But there were a few staples for both of our kids that we couldn’t get by without. I hesitate to say what you really need to go buy because every baby is different and every family has different needs. But here’s one piece of advice I can give you about whatever it is you are thinking of purchasing for your wee one. TRY IT OUT!
My lovely sister taught me this when I was registering for Bean. She called me one afternoon and told me she new exactly which swing I needed to buy for him. She started describing it to me and she was using phrases like, “It’s just so comfy!” and “It’s so soft and cushy!” “Gin,” I said. “How exactly do you know how comfy the swing is?” “Because – duh! – I got in it!” My sweet sister crawled her 25-year-old self up in a swing at the store all by herself one afternoon. She said she got down on her knees and contorted herself all up in odd positions until she was just about laying down in the swing. She played with the toys and snuggled in the padding and after half an hour and who knows how many swings, she declared it the most comfortable and insisted that’s the one that I go with. So, I did.
Two weeks later, Ginny came to town to visit with my parents. We headed to the baby store with a simple task of selecting a crib mattress. Being a rational, adult human being, I stood two mattresses up next to each other and compared prices and padding thickness. After a few minutes of this, Ginny threw her hands up in frustration and said, “You’re doing it all wrong!” And with that, she threw the mattresses down on the floor and laid down. And then she began rolling around. “What are you doing?!?!” I laughed. “I’m rolling around like a baby. Don’t you want to know what the mattress feels like? That’s what will matter to your baby.” And, once again, she was right. Of course that’s how I should determine the mattress. Just like I would buy my own mattress.
We spent the rest of the night at the baby store trying out everything. We climbed in cribs (and were promptly asked to get out of them…), we wrapped blankets around us, we sat in rockers. We did it all!
At first, it felt slightly odd. I mean, no one else was USING all of the baby products before scanning them with the registry gun. But by the time we were all done, I felt so good about what we’d picked out because there wasn’t a product on our registry that I hadn’t used myself. So, whether you’re registering online or in person, be sure you stop for a minute and look up from your consumer reports. Put your hands on the products. Test ‘em out. Roll around in ‘em. Get to know ‘em. Then, when you hit that trigger on the registry gun, you’ll know exactly what you’re bringing into your home.
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