She won’t actually be two until Wednesday, but we celebrated early anyway. The party theme was JiT’s suggestion and once he said it I couldn’t resist. That said, this year, I tried to tone things down considerably from last year. We invited fewer people and I tried not to obsess too much over the food and decorations. Mostly we kept things simple and tried to focus on maximum fun for Lillian and her friends and cousins.
Although I didn’t “plan” any activities for the kids, we’d planned the party in the backyard in order to take advantage of our existing activities back there. Between the slide, a bucket of sidewalk chalk and our makeshift water table, everyone remained happily entertained for the duration of the party.
In terms of the decor, I recycled some paper lanterns we had from last year and purchased inexpensive tutus from an online shop. They made for a cute and easy decoration, hung with clothes pins and doubled as a take home item for the girls. For the boys, I followed an easy tutorial I found to make felt bow ties for each of them. It took me less than an hour to make 6 of them one night and they double as adorable hair bows. Each child also received a container of bubbles and a bell bracelet, both found on clearance at Michaels.
As for the food, no one managed to snap any pictures of it, but this year I really tried not to go too crazy anyway. I made some mini quiche bites in muffin cups lined with wonton wrappers, which turned out really well. I’m hoping to make them again this week and snap a few photos then. Then I just made a simple pasta salad, some little banana and soy nut butter roll ups on tortillas and offered some store-bought fruit and dip. I didn’t even make the cake this year.
In the end I there was plenty of food, lots of fun and, of course, lots and lots of tutu cuteness.
