Halloween Update

So...I am a tad bit late with this, but lately my schedule has been kind of packed (why so will be in another post), so here I am finally, typing away.

We dressed Minnie (Emma) in her lovely costume, put on her big black ears, placed her pink & white polka dotted bow in front of the ears, & finished with a little black eyeliner nose. Then we dressed Mickey (Olivia) all up in her darling costume & gave her a little black dot for her nose. We grabbed their candy buckets (Justin's boss' wife gave Emma a Mickey Mouse Halloween candy bucket--complete with ears sticking off of it & Emma just loved it. For Olivia's candy bucket, I found an adorable felt witches' bag at Target) and were out the door by 7:00 p.m. However, after about 30 or so minutes of picture taking (they were just too adorable--I couldn't resist!), we were finally in the car and driving down the road. We only made about 6 stops in our little neighborhood, but the girls still had a ball! Emma loved going to everyone's door & ringing the doorbell or knocking & even though she didn't say "trick-or-treat" or "Happy Halloween", she gave everyone a BIG smile and a soft and sweet little "thank you". At our last stop, Olivia became a little grouchy because she was tired and we decided to cut our trick-or-treating short to Emma's dismay. Em was definitely not ready to stop, but knowing that it was best for both girls if we went in earlier than expected for the evening, we put both of them in the car and headed home. It was adorable to see Emma's amazement at all of the Halloween candy she was given and the big smile on her face once our Halloween evening was over. I am so happy that our Halloween turned out wonderful and that both girls, especially Emma, enjoyed themselves! Ever so often, since Halloween, Emma will pretend to "trick-or-treat" around the house. She goes from one person to the next saying "Trick-or-Treat!" & we give her pretend candy! Can't wait for next year when she gets to go door to door again! :)



My Beautiful Minnie Mouse



Me & my little girls all dressed up to go trick-or-treating

One very proud Daddy!

And....she's off!

She had so much FUN

       

On the Monday of Halloween week, me, my Mom, & my two little pumpkins made delicious Halloween cupcakes! They were Orange Supreme cupcakes & I iced them with buttercream & chocolate icing, while Em decorated them with lots of sprinkles! Even though Olivia is too small to decorate yet, she did enjoy watching Mommy make the cupcakes & Emma decorate them!

She was fasinated with the cupcake box

Looking too cute in her Halloween shirt

Em waiting very patiently for sprinkles

Decorating!

                  And...our Halloween cupcakes turned out beautiful & yummy!!



Emma's very first cupcake that she decorated! Love all the sprinkles!!

 Of course, you HAVE to carve a pumpkin for Halloween...so about two days before the big day we carved our very first one (well, the first one that Emma was able to help with)! Emma did not like cleaning out the pumpkin at all! She dug out a few icky, goey seeds & then left the rest for Mommy & Grandma. She was our entertainment as we cleaned out the pumpkin, by dancing to Halloween music with a spoon in her hand--too cute! Emma & Olivia's very first pumpkin turned out looking adorable & was the finishing touch for our decorated front porch!

Her first & last time to clean out a pumpkin

Dancing with her spoon!

Olivia woke up for the occasion

My two darling little pumpkins!!

Our finished pumpkin!

Happy Halloween!

Happy, Happy Halloween everyone!

I have been looking forward to this day for a couple of weeks & now it is FINALLY here! Yay! I am so thrilled about this evening when we take our two little girls trick-or-treating around the neighborhood! I have been trying to explain what you do when you trick-or-treat to Emma, our two year old, & hoping that she is understanding what I am telling her. Even though she is two years old, she has only gone trick-or-treating once, so this will be her second time to go & her first time to go to more than four houses. Her birthday is in October, so the first year she was too little to go, since we had just recently gotten out of the hospital, & then the next year we went to my Grandma's house in San Antonio. We trick-or-treated at three of her neighbor's houses & then to her close friend's house. Last year Em was a Fairy Princess for Halloween (she wore the same thing that she did for her 1st birthday party--a leotard, purple tutu, & wings). This year will be a little different, however, because, now, we have a new edition to our family, Olivia, & we actually bought costumes (not recycled birthday outfits). This Halloween, Emma is going as Minnie Mouse & Olivia is going to be Mickey Mouse. We are going to paint both of their noses black--we did a trial run this morning with Em & once she got used to the "paint" (eyeliner) being put on her nose, she was fine & looked adorable too!I am very interested to see how this Halloween goes, but I know that even if everything goes horribly wrong, it will still be a wonderful day! Please keep your fingers crossed that our trick-or-treating adventures go smoothly though! :)

I will be posting pictures of the girls in their Halloween costumes, the pumpkin that Emma helped carve, the girls in their adorable Halloween shirts we got at a local boutique, & the yummy Halloween cupcakes the girls helped make very, very soon! Right now, I am concentrating on enjoying this beautiful Halloween day with my hubby & girls! Have a safe & Fun Halloween everyone!! Enjoy it!

Emma's Fairy Princess Party

For our daughter, Emma's, 1st Birthday Party last year we celebrated by throwing a Fairy Princess Party! It was an adorable party filled with lots of fun & cute, cute decorations (which Emma just loved). My mom & I spend 1 to 2 months preparing for the party & had a blast decorating the whole house! When the day for the party arrived & all of the little girls showed up in their beautiful fairy princess dresses, tutus, & wings--the party couldn't have been any more Perfect!!

  

At first, we wanted the party to be a ballerina theme. Emma loves to dance & we are planning on putting her in ballet when she's older, so we thought a ballerina theme would be just perfect for her 1st Birthday Party. However, after searching & searching for ballerina decorations on the web for a few hours & came up empty handed, we decided that a change of theme was definitely needed. We then started looking for 1st birthday party themes online & found fairy listed as one. We thought it would be so cute to have Em in a tutu & wings & I knew she would just love dressing up. We then found a site about a fairy princess party & we knew, right then & there, that it would be the perfect theme for her 1 year celebration--plus, it would be pretty easy to find decorations, dinnerware, & party favors with fairies or princesses on them.

When the guests entered the house, they were amazed to see a "fairy princess" hallway full of flowers, rose petals, fairies, princesses, crowns, wands, butterflies, dragonflies, & a frog prince! We also had a banner saying "Make a Birthday Wish for Emma" hung from the windows of the office doors & a small table underneath it with a basket full of butterfly cards with ribbon loops & colorful pens. When each guest entered the party, we asked them to grab a pen & a butterfly card & write a birthday wish for Em on it & then hang it on the "Wishing Tree" in the living room.

At the end of the hallway, we had green & pink tulle hanging down from the upstairs banister for a beautiful added touch & balloon bouquets of green, hot pink, light pink, & purple (the colors of the party) in the living room.

We made signs out of cardboard & painted wooden sticks (with fairies, flowers, butterflies, & dragonflies hot glued on), so the "guests" & the "fairies" would know which way to go. We also taped a small "bathroom" sign onto the cute frog prince.

The "fairies" were pointed to the dining room where we had Emma "poof" (tap them on the head with her wand) them & they were crowned "fairy princesses". In the "fairy princess" room we had a pair of pink wings for each girl, a small fairy princess purse (used for one of the games later), a lea to wear on their head (a fairy princess crown), a pink necklace, & a wand. For the celebration of them becoming "true fairy princesses", we had glittery fairy & butterfly tattoos that they could have put on their arms, hands, or faces. To decorate the table in the room, we had a fairy table cloth, centerpiece, fairy princess books (prizes for the game winners), & lots of glitter in the colors of the party sprinkled about. To add some color to the walls & ceiling of the room, we taped fairies & curled ribbon to the walls & strung hot pink, light pink, & green crepe paper from each top corner of the room to the lamp. We filled adorable pink, purple, blue, & green sparkly buckets with flower pinwheels, crowns, rings, necklaces, princess note pads & pens, princess bubbles (each bubble container had a crown for a lid), all kinds of sweets, & pacifiers (for the babies). We also had a treasure chest (the treasure chest was meant to symbolize the pirates from the movie "Peter Pan", where there was a fairy named Tinkerbell in the movie) filled with all kinds of little gifts & goodies for a Mommy-to-be at the party that was pregnant with a little boy.

One of the very first decorations we started on & one of the first that the guests saw was a "fairy village" by our front door. It consisted of a fake potted tree, lots of fake flowers & grass, butterflies, dragonflies, rope lighting, vases, & fairies (of course). We wrapped the tree with the rope lighting & hung butterflies, dragonflies, & fairies from its leaves & branches. We then filled three glass vases with clear marbles & flowers for extra decor & placed fairies in the grass that we sprinkled on the ground. We found an adorable "Dream" sign, which we placed on top of a fourth vase. It turned out looking absolutely adorable & really set the mood for the party!

For the table that the "fairy princesses" would be eating at in the kitchen, we decorated with a white table cloth, adorable grass mats with pink daisies, cute fairies, lots of colorful glitter, hot pink place mats, fairy plates & centerpieces, swan dishes filled with dinner mints, light pink silverware tied together with flower ties, green napkins, light pink cups, & a tiny bell for each girl. My sister also made a darling birthday centerpiece of a little girl with a dandy lion & tiny flowers all around her & painted "Make a Wish" at the bottom. We also decorated Emma's high chair with a soft, pink cover & a tulle skirt that we taped around the sides of her high chair table.

For lunch, we served the guests & the beautiful "fairy princesses" sandwiches, chips, fresh fruit & veggies, & sweet tea. For dessert we had a bakery in our town make a yummy two tiered vanilla cake with pineapple filling on the bottom tier & strawberry on the top. They, also, made Em her very own pineapple filled cake, which she loved putting her fingers in & then licking off the buttercream icing! Both of the delicious cakes were decorated to look like a garden--with grass, pink, purple, & white flowers, butterflies, & dragonflies! They did an absolutely wonderful job on them!

We decorated the living room & kitchen with princess signs, fairy dolls, flowers, streamers/crepe paper, curled ribbon, a princess carriage, "A dream is a Wish" photo album, balloons, an adorable pink butterfly chair, the "Wishing Tree" (which was decorated with pink, sparkly ribbon), & two big, comfy pink & green flower pillows (not pictured). We also strung pink tulle from window to window in the living room, with a cluster of flowers tied to the middle of each section & hung a fairy "Happy Birthday" banner from two of the windows.  

The "fairy princesses" played many cute & fun games during the party too!!
~For one of the games we had bought gold coins & tossed them all over the floor of the living room. We had all of the girls get their fairy princess purses from the dining room & told them that the tooth fairy had come by to wish Emma a "happy birthday" & as she was leaving dropped her purse full of coins & that she really needed their help picking up all of them. We set the timer for a short amount of time & whoever picked up the most coins after the time was up would win the game!
~Then the girls played "Pin the Fairy on the Flower". It was an adorable game that we found by chance & luck on the Internet. It came with the poster (which we had laminated & taped onto a piece of cardboard), bandanna, & lots of fairy stickers. Each girl loved picking out their own fairy & had a blast playing the game!
~A bunch of us, also, danced the "Hokey Pokey" & the girls played musical chairs to music from the "Tinkerbell" movie soundtrack! Throughout most of the party we had the movie "Tinkerbell" on for anyone to watch. At the end of the party all of the girls went outside & took turns hitting the candy filled fairy pinata we had tied to a tree. All of the girls, big & little, had sooo much fun playing all of the games, no matter if they won a prize or not!!


Seeing the BIG smile on Emma's face after the whole day was through really made all the time & hard work we put into the party worthwhile. There is nothing better than seeing your daughter smile & knowing just how much she Loved her 1st birthday party!