June & Lyla Turn 2!

Wasn't it just a couple months ago I was writing about the girls' actual birth day? And a few days after that their first birthday? Now they're two people, TWO!

I wanted to do a minnie mouse birthday party from the beginning since the girls love minnie and mickey (and I already own so many things I could use to match the party), but the girls didn't have outfits that would work with that theme and they really don't need any new clothes right now. I couldn't come up with anything else that sounded fun to me though, so I bought $8 of fabric from Joann's the week before their birthday and got to work. It felt so good to pull out the sewing machine again that I started doing various other projects throughout the week and rekindled my long lost love of crafting.

 Little mice.

I have a small disclaimer before I get going here- I'm on pinterest too and see all the crazy, extravagant parties people throw and it really gives me no pressure to throw them. I also love simple little parties and think they're just as fun for little birthday girls (or boys)...and some of the painstaking effort put into what are sometimes ridiculous details are likely only done for blog praise from other moms and the kids would never notice. However, seeing as few people still follow my sporadic blog posts I'm certainly not doing it for that, I actually just love to throw parties- and we live in a house that's not very conducive to party hosting so I don't have people over very often which I really don't like. I love cooking a good meal and setting a nice table for guests. We pretty much throw a party once a year and it's one of the fun bonuses of motherhood for me. So you know, I'm not trying to outdo anyone- I just had fun and I felt like this one really came together which made me happy. :) (I thought it was even more fun than last year's party, though probably just because J&L are even more into it now)

I was pretty happy with how their Minnie dresses came out and that's when I started getting really excited for their party, maybe a little too excited...maybe I started playing with some of their toys to "test" them before they got them. Maybe I really like Disney movies and the little people princess castle was more than I could bare, but that's neither here nor there.

 Back to these two.

They kill me with their cuteness.

 Then I decided to paint mouse noses on them with my eyeliner- what's wrong with me??? I draw the line at pageants though folks, we just have fun playing silly dress ups at home.

"Um...there's something on your nose."

 The girls have fun with it too, otherwise it wouldn't work and you'd only see bawling pictures. I'm so glad they still indulge me though, I just can't get enough of them.

I might be crazy, but I decided everyone that came needed to have a pair of mouse ears. So I made 35 mickey/minnie mouse headbands. I made these over several days and cut foam circles as we drove to Provo and hot glue gunned ears every evening while we watched TV. Sometimes my assistants "helped" me. {please don't ask a silly question like if the glue gun next to Lyla was plugged in- it wasn't}. I actually enjoyed making the ears, though I will say it was by far the most time consuming part of the party. And since I'm getting old I also started feeling like I had carpel tunnel in my right hand from all the cutting.
But- they were pretty cute and if you bought 35 mouse ears at disneyland it'd cost about $550, it cost me about $25 and hopefully some of the party guests can use them when they take a trip to disneyland. (or when they occasionally feel like wearing them in the comfort of their own home). Not all the men took theirs home...weird.

 I decided to modify a Christmas minute to win it game I'd seen and had everyone wear the ears and try to stick a mouse nose on their nose, sadly I participated in this game so there are no pictures. (I guess I'm the only one in my family who thinks to take pictures of everything) It was fun though. I also was going to do a photo booth for everyone wearing their ears and noses, but it's hard to be the hostess and try to be in charge of everything, so I forgot about it till everyone had left. We'll live I guess.

I bought some $1 plastic tablecloths and put those little sticker labels on them to make a polka dot backdrop, I liked it so much I made 3. The walls somehow still felt naked so I added some large bows, also made of $1 plastic tablecloths. This was so easy and turned out just how I wanted! And since I'm getting so old bending over the tablecloths sticking on dots for a half hour made my back ache for 2 days. Am I falling apart?

I began gathering everything from around our house that was red, black or yellow.  I liked the idea of a sort of carnival theme with minnie mouse so we had little carnival games- the nose one I already mentioned, shooting contests, pin the nose on the minnie, and a coloring contest.

 I put Brad in charge of the shooting contests and they were a lot of fun.

For food we kept it simple with hot dog hot dog hot diggity dogs. (I actually got polish dogs and served them with JDawgs sauce- yum!) as well as popcorn. I even got cute little ketchup and mustard containers which happened to match the party theme perfectly, of course I didn't think to take a picture after I pulled those out and was actually serving hot dogs.

 I put marachino cherries on the cupcakes because Lyla fell in love with them one night when my family had an ice cream sunday bar and ate about 20 of them. Strangely, she was more into frosting and sprinkles on her birthday.

One of my sweet instagram friends sent me these adorable polka-dot straws that went so perfect with the party! It was so thoughtful of her and they were a hit.

We got a cute little popcorn maker for Christmas which worked well, and then one of my few purchases for the party (besides necessities like food) was a little hot dog roller I found on Amazon- sadly we couldn't get the thing to turn, but the good news is I had no guilt when I decided to send it back after the party so it ended up being just a free table prop... And I'm pretty sure I served several luke-warm hot dogs. And as I cooked them on the stove top of the little studio kitchen upstairs the whole room filled with smoke. So things weren't perfect. But it was still fun. And once you put j-dawgs sauce on anything it tastes pretty awesome. No one complained anyways.

Opening Presents was a hit.

 

Our special present to the girls was this princess castle- I've been SO excited about it, all of the princesses introduce themselves, say a couple phrases, and sing a song from their movie! It's adorable. I hope they play with it a lot because I'm kind of in love with it. We're all smitten with it. If you have a little girl and like disney movies it's a must have!

 The little centers of attention, loving every minute of it.

They were even gracious enough to say thank you to a couple of people.

 Blowing out candles like it's nobody's business.

 The cutest party girls that ever were. That's what it's all about. They didn't want their ears during most of the party and since it was their birthday after all, I didn't push it. :)

 Instead of going to the trouble of making them little cakes I probably could have put a small pile of frosting and sprinkles on a plate and it would've been the same to them. Note to children: cake is also delicious and unhealthy in case you were wondering. :)

It was such a fun day.

 I almost forgot to take a picture of our family, but just before the last guest left we snapped a couple.

 And the after party party. (just kidding, the girls crashed and the room wasn't nearly that clean) This was the after photo shoot party. :)

Happy Second birthday June and Lyla! Best two years I've had. Ever.