Sometimes when life is really busy, and you're a second child, you don't get your birthday celebrated until nearly two weeks after the fact. Willa Kate, please accept that as my formal, public apology.
Frozen inspired Cake- top tier: fresh strawberry, bottom tier: chocolate with cookies and cream ganache
And though you may not have shown it during the actual party, how much you've talked about it since has assured me that we have made amends for the scheduling grievance.
Wills' birthday theme was so easy to pick. She, like every other girl under age seven, wanted an "Elsa Party." Hooray for mounds of licensed party ware at my disposal! There are several variations of the Frozen party, so rather than the ice blue and silver look, I went with the jewel tones-- purple, turquoise, and a dark hot pink.
Dessert Table in the dining room
Pinata and handmade (can't ya tell??) Olaf bags for the favors
Sweet girl's chalkboard with her birthday stats
The benefit of stuffing 30 people into our not big home for a birthday party is that I get to decorate over the course of a week. Or maybe it even stretched out to weeks. Have a few minutes? Slap up an Elsa poster. Girls eating a snack? Scrapbook paper the dining room hutch door insets. Need to be doing 837 other things? Rip up fabric for a rag bunting instead. :)
Gifts Table guarded by Anna and Elsa
Food Table
Drink Station
Frozen Birthday Book for guests to write notes to Willa
We are finally making the shift of the kiddos parties actually being about the kiddos. Before, it felt like we were celebrating our child, but really planning to entertain the adults because how much do toddler actually do at parties, other than demand cupcakes from the moment they walk in? Now that some of the older siblings in our friends group are able to sit still for more than 8 seconds, it makes sense to add in some fun party themed games or crafts. So, I planned on a few for her party. {Disclaimer: this is NOT a "Pinterest" party. There are a zillion other parties out there that are more inspiring than ours. But, I do want my sweet second born to know we made a little effort in her honor. ;) } I had planned to open up the activity time of the party reading a short Frozen book. The party pack that I ordered for her birthday included characters that I cut out and put on small dowel rods, so that the kids could hold them up when that character was mentioned in the book. Butttttttt, the book got laid on the gift table, which quickly filled with gifts, so the book was nowhere to be found when the time came. Booo! So, we opened up with some Frozen karaoke and dancing. The girls got the sing-a-long edition of the Frozen DVD for Christmas, so we just skipped through until we got to the parts with their favorite songs. Then, I had stickers and markers out for the kids to decorate foam snowmen and snowman-esque party hats for the boys and tiaras for the girls.
For the last activity, we made snow and let the kids play in it. This required the most planning. I got the individual fake snow packets from Amazon and a Dollar Tree plastic shoe bin for each child. Prior to the party, I mixed up the snow in each individual bin and stored it in our extra refrigerator in the basement until party time. To add to the excitement, I asked the kids, "Do you wanna build a snowman?? But, did you bring any snow?" I did not premix Willa Kate's snow, but instead had the powder poured inside and premeasured the necessary water in a jar. I let Princess Willa work her magic (a.k.a. pour the water onto the powder) to make the snow right in front of the kids, and Corrie and Rachel helped bring in the bins for each kiddo to play with. Surprisingly, it wasn't as messy as I had guessed, so I'd recommend!
We finished up with some yummy cake (shoutout to Cakes by Lisa who makes all our cakes, and my mouth waters even typing that!) and a mini ice cream bar, and a little snapshot photo of some of the guests in front of our covered-up bookcase.
Birthday girl! (and Mama-razzi)
Happy Birthday to You!
After party! Frozen cart rides
I wish little Wills had gotten a good nap and happier countenance because she really didn't find her groove until about 15 minutes before everyone left. But, it has been so sweet to hear her ask "Elsa party 'gain? More Elsa party t'day?" Lets me know she had a great time, even experiencing the party from Mama's hip.
Click HERE if you're curious how I feel about my littlest love turning two.
Earlier this year, I stumbled on a quote that says, "Collect moments, not things," and it has stuck with me. As Sam and I have talked over the last month about what to get these spoiled girlies for Christmas, we kept coming back to two things--
(1) something related to Frozen
(2) an "experience" in lieu of stuff
We knew that Disney World had an Elsa-themed fireworks display at the Magic Kingdom castle, and we seriously considered taking a long weekend with the girls and going down for it. And then we decided that was crazy town. At least for now. There are lots of fun things to do last minute, Disney does not strike me as one of them. To make the most of it, it requires some advanced planning, so we shelved that for another day and time.
Then, we saw that Elsa and Olaf were going to be at The Greenbrier for meet and greets on certain weekends throughout December, so I thought about going and staying the night there and letting the girls meet their favorite characters. But, then I wondered what we would do the rest of our visit. Take Wills to high tea? Stroll by some fine china with the preschoolers? That sounded more like a form of parental stress torture rather than a fun Christmas experience for our family.
The girls often hijack our phones to pull up videos while we are out to eat or I'm cooking dinner. Time and time again, they are based on Frozen. Well, several times I've seen them watching videos from Frozen on Ice. On Monday night (after Elfie appeared and we decorated the tree), Harper took my phone and sat for an hour watching Frozen on Ice videos, and I got the idea to check and see if there happened to be one touring within a few hours of us. Sure enough, Disney's Frozen on Ice was scheduled for Greesnboro, NC (about an hour and forty minutes from our house) for this week! Tickets were ridiculous to even get in the building (like $70 for the cheapest seat in the building), so I checked on eBay. I found a set of 4 VIP social section tickets for cheaper than I could buy the 4 cheapest tickets on Ticket Master, so I pulled the trigger for a performance on Saturday, December 6 at the Greensboro Coliseum. We decided to keep it a secret from the girls and let "Elf on the Elf" surprise them on Saturday morning.
I let them unwrap their "something to wear" presents (since we've liked the idea of something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read for their Christmas gifts), and ta-da! Harper and Willa Kate, errr...Anna and Elsa!
I really, really, really wanted a picture of them together before we left, but Wills refused. She was in a bad mood from having to get up a little earlier than she would've liked (we had to leave our house by 8:30 to make our 11:00 showing), and that meant she didn't even want sissy to look at her, much less put her arm around her for a picture. Oh, Willa.
We made it to the Coliseum with about 20 minutes to spare (what. on. earth?!?! The Fertittas were early?!), and so we bought the girls some snow cones in Frozen souvenir cups, and set off to find our seats. I knew they were going to be in one of the lower sections since we were 116 Row B, but when we were directed by the seating attendant to go all the way to the front, I about fell over. Row B was the SECOND ROW, and no one sat in front of us. It was awesome.
One of my most favorite things about motherhood is getting to create and experience magic and excitement for my daughters. Christmas is so much fun, Disney is so much fun, adventure is so much fun with these little sweethearts to do it with. As the characters came out and the excitement grew, I had tears in my eyes. How fun. How blessed we are to get to do this with and for our girls.
Here comes the snow!
They were pretty much in shock for the entire performance. I don't think that Wills moved an inch for the entire hour and a half. She just ate her snow cone, her eyes not moving from the ice. The special effects in the production were amazing, and my favorite part is when it would start snowing. Literally snowing on us. Harper looked so cute with her arms stretched out trying to catch snowflakes.
I am so glad we stumbled across this early Christmas gift for Harper and Willa. It was worth every penny, for them and for us. Before we went back to Roanoke, we decided to eat somewhere close to the Coliseum, and we found a place called Harper's. It had some yummy food, and despite it being a little nicer than what we were anticipating (read: we wanted something barely above fast food since it was 1:30 a.k.a. nap time), but we all had some yummy food. Sam had a crab cake sandwich, I had chicken, and the girls had salmon with green beans, and they ate every bit.
Even Willa likes Harper's
I hope this is a memory for the girls. I hope when they think back of one of the first Christmas memories they have, they think to this fun day, all four of us together. It may not be the conventional big "Santa present" under the tree, but I saw lots of smiles today that meant so much more.
