Everything Beautiful... And Then Some: Birthday fun!

I'm way behind catching up on the blogs that I follow...and obviously I'm behind on my own blog as well. Such a crazy, fun and VERY hot weekend.

Friday, of course was my son Simon's 2nd birthday (whew, say that 5 times fast) - I can't believe my little baby boy is 2!! He's changed so much from last year at this time...and even more so then 2 years ago when I first met him in person. He's changed my life for the better and I honestly can't imagine living without him - it must have been a very boring life that I lived before him, because he's added so much joy and energy to it - what the heck did I do before him? ;) My friend's mom commented that she understood why I was in such good shape (whatever) after witnessing my son's energy level firsthand. It's true, I feel like I'm always running after him and trying to keep up. He's amazing!

Because I could...and because my in-laws were ever so gracious to allow me to use their backyard, I threw a party for the Simonator. I was expecting him to be a little more excited about the festivities. But truth be told, he was more excited for the people who played with him and the two helium balloons that his sweet Aunt Ruth got for him, then the decorations and presents. Okay, I take that back, he was pretty excited over Matt and Jackie's Elmo automated book - anything with that furry red monster on it totally makes his day...add buttons that make noise and you've made one heck of a happy kid! So this detailed post of his birthday party is not for the enjoyment of my son, but rather for my girlfriends who enjoy creative things.

I really did have SO much fun planning his party and realized how much I missed party (event) planning and opening up my craft closet to the many creative wonders that it holds for me. I wish I had more excuses to be crafty. ;) So without further ado, here are all of the juicy details of my creative inspiration.

So, to begin with, I was coming up blank concerning a theme. I didn't want to do an Elmo themed party - even though, my son would have been in Elmo heaven. I wanted to stick to a calm and soothing theme that both adults and children would enjoy. My first bit of inspiration was the fun Etsy artist evite that I found on Pingg.com - love that site!! Yes, I cheated and went the email rout instead of sending invites through the mail. It was a very last minute decision on where we were having the pary, hence sending them out through the mail wouldn't have made any sense - and would have cost more $$ (I ♥ free things!).

I was instantly drawn to the colorful image and loved the tricycle! The colors actually match his nursery colors quite well, so I decided to go with a color theme that matched the invite.

My second inspiration was from my friend Christine. She posted this back in July (scroll half way down) of her adorable daughter's room. I was instantly inspired by the tissue paper pom-poms and was happy to read that she made them herself and that they were easy to make. I headed over to Martha Stewart's website and sure enough there they with very easy instructions on how to make the lovely pom-poms. As soon as we finalized the location for his party - my in-laws beautiful backyard - I knew that I needed these to complete the look. I also knew that I needed them to look more boyish, so I headed out to find orange, blue and green tissue paper to go along wih my color theme. Ever so easy!

The banner was my own creation. I again used the colors that I had already setteled on. I had come across these fun clip-art letters on Martha Stewart's website a few months ago (what would I do without Martha?) and decided that a banner would be a fun project for the letters. I Googled the S-I-M-O-N letters and found them on a website for kids (they were actually originally letter-mazes). I printed them off, and used them for templates for the bigger cutout letters. That actually worked out quite well.

The food I kept nice and simple. A veggie tray (that went with the color theme - green peppers, cucumbers and bright orange baby carrots), pretzels (I toyed with the idea of keeping up with the theme and going with orange cheese puffs, but Peter wisely nixed that idea - lol), limeade spritzers and water for the beverages and of course the adorable Cake Pops!!

Care to guess where the cake idea came from? Yep, good 'ol Martha. I was on her site a couple of weeks ago and came across a video for the Cake Pops. I was instantly excited about this cake project and decided to scrap my other cake idea all together. Best decision ever. Not only are they SO fun to look at but they're equally fun to make and ever-so-delishious. Matt asked me when I was going to start selling them at the State Fair - which got me thinking, maybe they would sell well if I wrapped them in bacon before dipping them in chocolate. Oh yeah. ;) For the cake plate, I wrapped floral foam in white tissue paper and hot-glued it to the cake plate, covering it with bright yellow tissue paper grass. I then poked the sticks through the foam and voila!

So that was the gist of Simon's 2nd birthday party. We were blessed by everyone who could make it. Simon had 3 other little people who made it extra special by just being there and entertaining him with giggles and hugs. I came away from the night feeling very blessed by all of our sweet friends and family. I wished more then anything that my family could have been there too (only in a perfect world, right?). We missed all of the friends and family who couldn't make it - you know who you are, also know that we were thinking about you!! I'll leave you with some fun "people" pictures from the evening.