a birds & bunnies birthday party.

last week, my baby turned two.

two.

i still can't believe it.  i've been very emotional about this birthday for some reason.  the other day, i was cleaning out her room and organizing her clothes and i sat in the rocking chair in her room and bawled for about twenty minutes.  i'm having a hard time realizing that she isn't my "baby" any more.  she's a toddler.  a full of spirit, always on the go, independent little girl.

for the past couple of months i've been trying to figure out what theme i would do for this big girl's birthday bash.  my rule of thumb has been that each of my girls get a bigger birthday party for their first and second birthdays, and then i pull out the party-in-a-bag from walmart with cake and ice cream and family-only parties for the next couple of years.  birthday parties can be just too much.  but, i love to indulge my creative side for a couple of years anyway and do something cute and fun.  so, this year i went for two of my emmy em's favorites: birds & bunnies for this colorful, springy party.  and the decorations will also double as next years easter decor.  score.

one of my best friends from high school gave emmy a bunny lovey when she was just a baby.  since then, she has never been without it!  she sleeps with that sweet little bunny every single nap and night... and more often than not, we are turning the house upside down in a mad dash before we can put her to sleep to find where she put the thing.  she LOVES bunnies.  she also loves birds; she's constantly pointing them out to me when they're in our yard, so i decided it would be cute to do this spring theme, especially since her birthday was so close to easter this year.  i didn't spend a whole lot of time planning it and found myself up the night before working on last minute decor, but it was fun and cute which fits our birthday girl to a t.

table:

- white eyelet tablecloth

- crate&barrel vase we got as a wedding gift filled with fake cherry blossoms and pussywillows that i had used almost four (!!) years ago for bella's first birthday and bring them out every spring

food:

- crackers&cheese

- a layered tortellini salad with pesto dressing

- bunny cupcakes

- birds nests

- carrot cake

- annie's bunny crackers in mason jars and coral colored pails

i decorated our hutch with china teacups that were my grandparents, some white vases and the girls easter egg tree (without the easter eggs!).  i also made this banner out of drop cloth, ribbon and pretty fabric i had on hand.  i used a bunny shaped cookie cutter for the bunnies and made my own template for the birds to trace and cut.

i made food cards out of pink gingham cardstock and decorated some of them with fabric flowers or ties.  i like labeling food at a party to help guests know what it is that they're putting on their plates!

pretty pink drink, plates and utensil station... it's not pictured here but friends of ours brought a beautiful pitcher of "watermelon water" that they make from pureeing watermelon and ice... so yummy and pretty!

this carrot cake was to die for, if i do say so myself.  we are big "pioneer woman" fans in this house, and her recipe for this cake did not disappoint.  i decorated it with two kabob skewers and ribbon tied with fabric scraps for a touch of whimsy and color

this layered tortellini salad was pretty and delicious (wish i would've gotten a non-condensationized photo of it!) especially displayed in my beautiful trifle bowl (thank you, pampered chef).

my mom made these cute little birds nests with chow mein noodles, marshmallow and mini cadbury eggs.  so cute!

my mom also helped me create these little bunny cupcakes with sugar cookie ears and chocolate bits for eyes.  they were a little time consuming but emmy loved them.  i think she ate three of them, i lost count.

the birthday girl!  

family shot.

cousins & cupcakes!

for my sweet girl...

make a wish!

the rain held off so the kiddos could play outside for a bit...

shooting hoops with emmy's new basketball set!  bampy would be so proud.

sweetest pic of the whole day.  love these two so much!

loving her (one of many) new babies :)  this girl is SO obsessed with baby dolls!

it was a wonderful party with lots of sweet family and friends to help us celebrate our special girl!  she is such a gift to our family and brings laughter and sunshine everywhere she goes... we love you, emmy faith!

resurrection cake.

i love traditions.

i know i've written about this before, but i grew up in a family that was ALL about them.  and i loved it.  now it's so important to me to build traditions of our own with the girls... it's such a special part of childhood and family life in general.

naturally, holidays are the perfect time to develop these traditions and sweet family moments.  however, in my best efforts, i find a few things that are difficult in the task to do so: number one, our girls are still small and while doing special things is super fun, it can also make me want to poke my eyes out.  seriously.  and sometimes--well, most of the time--things don't go the way i have imagined in this idealistic brain of mine.  number two, it's an ongoing task for nick&i to try to teach our girls the reasons why our family celebrates holidays like christmas and easter.  for us, easter is far more than bunnies and eggs... but to them right now, cute fluffy animals, pretty decorated eggs and easter candy are what's most exciting.  so we are constantly trying to find ways to teach them more and more about our faith and our savior's love for us.  which can be a huge challenge.  ever tried to explain death and resurrection to a two and four year old?  geesh.

so while scrolling the internet one day, i found a few different ideas for "resurrection cakes", and i thought they were so cute, and a great (and delicious!) way for teaching the girls more about easter.

here's what we did...

resurrection cake

materials needed (besides recipe ingredients):
* cardboard
* tinfoil
* coconut
* green food coloring
* candy eggs
* oreos
* chocolate sticks
* glue
* biscuit cutter

- preheat oven to 350.
- we used this chocolate cake recipe from the pioneer woman, but we halved it.
- grease and dust a pampered chef batter bowl with cocoa.  fill bowl with batter and bake for 1 hr, or until knife is clean when inserted into cake.  allow to cool.
- wrap a good sized piece of cardboard with tin foil.
- take several oreo cookies and remove the white filling.  finely crush the chocolate wafer parts in a ziploc bag.
- in a mixing bowl, mix a bag of shredded coconut with a few drops of green food coloring until coconut is evenly colored.
- once cake is cooled, take a biscuit cutter and carve out a portion of the cake to be the "stone".
- we used this super yummy chocolate buttercream frosting recipe from mel's kitchen cafe; highly recommend.
- using a spreader, frost cake and "stone".  dust cake with some of the oreo crumbs to resemble dirt; save a good portion for later.
- add coconut "grass" to cover the tinfoil, leaving a section by the opening of the tomb uncovered.  add a few pastel colored egg candies; i used reeses peanut butter eggs just because they're my fav and we had them on hand for filling the girls easter eggs tomorrow.
- fill the tomb opening section with the rest of your oreo cookie crumbs for "dirt".
- cut a few chocolate sticks to make three crosses.  glue together.  when glue has dried, top cake with crosses.

voila!  this is going to be one of our new family traditions.  the girls loved it; they helped me mix it up and bake it this morning, and then they were so excited to wake up from their naps and see the decorated cake!

 

happy easter everyone!  i can still hear my dad's booming voice excitedly say: HE IS RISEN; HE IS RISEN INDEED!

so grateful.

christmas home tour.

 i absolutely love christmastime.

one of my favorite things this time of year is decorating our home for christmas.  i love having special pieces that our girls will remember, and filling our house with holiday beauty.  red berries, a norman rockwell print here and there, white lace, silver&gold and twinkling lights.  i always drag my feet at taking it all down, and love to enjoy the lights of our tree well into january... ah well.  i just love the warmth, coziness and beauty of our home at christmastime; here is a glimpse of what it looked like this year...

merry christmas!  from our home to yours.  may your christmas season be filled with hope and light because of the one who came for us.

fall crafts for little ones.

i began this school year increasingly aware of how fast time is flying, and that this is the last year i have at home with my bella.  

just typing that makes me want to cry.

so i've been trying to take full advantage of our days and be more proactive than ever before at rolling up my sleeves and doing things with my girls.  being intentional.  letting the dishes sit in the sink and the laundry build up if it means that i get to treasure these moments with them.  

our weeks are filled with library trips, bella's gymnastics classes, walks, playing outside, baking and crafts.  with a few trips to target thrown in the mix.  and toddler tantrums and mama meltdowns.  but for the most part i really, really love these days i have at home with my girls.  i want to always remember them as i am even now more aware of how fast they are fleeting.  

at the beginning of fall, i turned to pinterest to help me in my quest to find some fall-themed crafts to do with the girls.  i checked books out of the library to match our crafts and we had some very simplistic, very quick little lessons: learning about apples, leaves changing colors, seasons, nature and all things fall.  

apple stamping

this fall, we had two large brown paper bags in our basement filled with apples.  after a trip to the orchard, i showed the girls how to use them as stamps... you can see how the craft turned out; not as pretty as i had in my head.  actually, not at all apple stamping.  and bella insisted on adding pink to our fall-themed color palette, but i sure do love her free spirited creativity.  but, just to be true to the purpose of the craft, i had to complete my own in order to prove that we really were supposed to be apple stamping...

apple diagram
to teach bella the parts of an apple (and an apple-themed bible verse), i cut an apple in half and we talked about the skin, the fleshy part and the seed that can be replanted to grow more apples.  i had cut all of these parts out of construction paper and then she got to glue it together.  bella's friend wyatt came over for this one!  crafts with toddlers are always better with two mamas in it together.  we had some wine after (just kidding, but that would've been a good idea).

wax paper leaves

this is the classic fall craft!  we collected a bunch of leaves on a walk one day and bella had fun ironing them between pieces of wax paper.  our windows look pretty and fall-ish.  

handprint tree

i took some dropcloth i bought at lowes and cut some squares out of it, as well as tree shapes out of some burlap.  i glued the "tree" onto the dropcloth squares and then painted the girls hands red, yellow and orange to use their handprints as the leaves.  oh yeah: and emmy totally stressed me out, by the way.  sorry for the picture overload, but i had to capture this awesomeness.

get your craft on with your kiddos... it's totally stressful and at times you'll want to scream; maybe even poke your eye out.  but the pictures, the finished products and the looks on their faces as they exert their independence and creativity are totally worth it.  also, i'm pretty sure it will end up better in my memory than it was in actuality.  you know how that happens.  a friend of mine recently equated it to childbirth.  

goodbye, fall!  now it's time for snowmen and hot chocolate.  and this family's pretty pumped about that.