Pancakes and PJ’s; My little girl turns 3!

Three years ago today I had no idea how much my life was going to change in two days. Forty-eight more hours were all B and I had left alone together; to sleep in, read, eat hot food and go to movies. Our baby girl arrived early, she was on top of her game even then. For each birthday of hers I have tried to make it as special as I knew how, and of course, anyone who knows me knows this includes a partyHer first birthday was a Mad Hatter Tea Party, her second was Monkey Madness. For her third I combined two of her current passions: pancakes and gymnastics. The party was held at a local recreation centre and was about two hours long. For the first hour, the children climbed on inflatables and played parachute games with their painted faces! For the second hour they came into the party room for a yummy brunch. And of course, below, are some images of our pancake and pajama, gymmienastics extravaganza. Everything came together so perfectly! Everly had so much fun at the party that she wanted two more just like it that day. Yeah, sorry kiddo, mommy loves you buckets, but that’s just not going to happen, lol!

 

I had a ton of help with this party. My dear friends Lauren and Emily were amazing; thank you so much ladiesLauren helped me fine tune every detail and put together some of the food (check out Lauren’s fabulous DIY lifestyle blog!). Emily was a trooper in helping put food out for the guests (I asked her to put out the meat and she’s veggie, lol) and she took some absolutely priceless photographs of our family of four celebrating with the cake! That NEVER happens.

And speaking of the cake… OHMYGOD! I asked Beth-Ann to make Everly a cake that looked like a stack of pancakes and I was floored when she walked in with a masterpiece, I almost felt bad cutting it. Well I felt bad until I tasted it, lol. It was perfect, Beth-Ann did an amazing job.

And a big thank you to Mila for lending me her pink gingham table cloths, they sure dressed our tables nicely!

The favors were mason jars filled with pancake mix and chocolate chips with little whisks; a family friendly activity and mealEverly was so excited to give her friends “tools” that they could use to mix up pancakes, lol. I wanted to give something that was both cute and useful. They were inspired by a mason jar mix that I saw on Pinterest from A Cozy Kitchen.

Some of the treats were inspired by Pinterest of course! I saw the adorable minicini pops on the Ice Cream Before Dinner blog, (lazy mom alert: I bought mine from Costco, and stuck sticks into them!) The doughnut pops were inspired by Pizzazzarie (love, love, love that blog!!).

 

Invitations, tent cards, favour tags, water bottle labels and parfait toppers by: Little Pickle Photography and Design using graphics from Stockberry Studio and paper from Maree Truelove

Photography by:Little Pickle Photography and Design and Emily DaSilva

Cake and cupcakes by: Cakes by Beth-Ann

Timbits: The one and only Tim Hortons

Flowers supplied by: Flower Affairs and arranged by Lauren and myself

Table runner inspired by: Ruffled

Straws and Divine Twine: Greenmunch

Balloons, plates and cutlery: Party Crashers

Mini “milk” bottles: Starbucks 9 ounce Frapp bottles emptied and cleaned. The labels were not fun to take off; the sticky left behind was very stubborn. It took three washes on extra hot, and acetone.

Circle swags, paper chains and favors assembled by myself: I realize now that I should have documented some of the “crafting” for this party as it would have made for a nice DIY post. Will remember that for next time…