Addison's Fancy Nancy Birthday Party

I used to love planning birthday parties, and then Pinterest came around and made me feel like a fool for even trying!  Don't get me wrong, I love Pinterest for so many reasons, but not many things can knock you down so quickly as taking a few minutes to look through what everyone else is doing and realize that you are LAME.

After taking a little bit of a break from the Pinterest craze, I have a newfound love for it.

For recipes, photography inspiration, people with style leading me in the right direction of what to wear....

AND.

to finding a fabulous party that someone else put a whole lot of work into and was so nice to share and totally copying it right out from under them to create a party that my girl is still talking about....thank you Pinterest.

And thank you Tiny Oranges blog for being the creative one and sharing all of your details with us moms who can take the easy way out with our kids being none the wiser!

I ordered the cute invitation from an Etsy shop 

called Pixel Parade. She was awesome to work with and also helped 

me come up with other signs to use throughout the party.

like this one, which welcomed everybody in style.

Being her 5th birthday party, I figured it was a good year to try and do a "drop off" party.....meaning the parents drop off their kids for some fun, get a few hours to themselves, and you don't have to feed them!  It worked out great.  Except I'm no dummy and begged my amazing friend Joy to be my Fancy helper and stick around for the festivities.

I needed someone to help all the girls get "fancy".

I ordered a bunch of accessories off of Windy City Novelties and Oriental Trading and let the girls pick and choose what they wanted to add to their already fancy ensembles.

We also had a little eye shadow and lip gloss to have fun with as well.

and a mirror.  

You must have a mirror to check out all the fanciness!

For food I kept it pretty simple.  Since the party was from 2-4, we just did PB&J or cheese sandwiches cut into flowers and butterflies....Fancy Nancy's favorites.  We also had Fancy fruit kabobs, cookies,

Birthday chex mix (addictive), 

and Sprinkles pink cupcakes.

 We also had flower pops which were just giant marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.

The table was the fun part and so easy thanks to those links that I grabbed off Pinterest.

I borrowed tables and chairs from friends.

I got purple foam sheets and cut them into butterflies for placemats (which the girls decorated as one of the crafts).  The eiffel towers came from Birthday express.

Flower centerpieces were from Party City as well as the poms.

Addison still has these in her room!

Since this was a Fancy Nancy party, I decided to pull out the good stuff.

The stuff I registered for, but have yet to use.......the china.

The girls did great, but I wouldn't have put it out if I would have cared if something did go wrong.

I thought it would just be fun to have a "real" tea party.  And by real tea, I mean crystal light.

I found these silk organza ties off Amazon for an absolute STEAL.

 Addison's dad dressed up for the occasion and helped answer the door....she helped him get ready, even picking out his tie. 

and loved that he dressed up for her special day.

Can you tell that this girl was excited for her party?

  To keep the fun going (and fill the two hours) we had a few crafts/activities planned.

When the girls arrived, they got "fancy" with the accessories and make up.

They also decorated a hat (thank you Target $ spot).

I just cut up spare bows and bought a huge bag of feathers from Michaels.  

After everyone was there we did the first craft of decorating the place mats with jewels and stickers found at Michaels.

I channeled my old teacher self and read "Fancy Nancy's Posh Puppy" to the group.

and then the girls all got to decorate their own puppy dog collar.

The puppies were also found online at Birthday Express.

After snacks, cake, and crafts were done, we played a game that I remembered from a party when I was little. It's basically like hot potato, but you wrap several boxes inside each other with a little prize in each one.  Music plays, present gets passed, music stops, prize is opened.  The girls loved it.

I wrapped up things like inexpensive books, play jewelry, a boa, etc.

Treat time.

  

Graham got to join in the festivities for a Sprinkles cupcake because who am I to keep a kid from Sprinkles? Girls only party or not.....

For favors, I found a cute Fancy Nancy book on Amazon and put a little "Merci" sticker inside from Addison for each guest.

The party was a huge success, most of all because my girl continues to tell me that her was her best day ever.  I can't believe she's FIVE!!! 

But yet I can, because she continues to remind me every day.....

Because it's my birthday

And now that we were back home, we could really celebrate Addison's birthday....for the 7th time.

I had already heard the phrase, "because it's my birthday" a ridiculous amount of times, but we heard it a bunch more on April 9th.

From the phone ....

Because it's my birthday, my brother will make me cupcakes.

Because it's my birthday, I get to get my nails done like the big girls do!!!

And because it's my birthday, I will get an extra special manicure, complete with massage...

"This is amazing"....."This is totally the best part!!!"

 and because it's my birthday, my mom shall try to make birthday pancakes....that were not good at all, but I'll forgive her.

Like Family

Our last leg of our Houston trip had us with the Cockes.  Sheila and Sam were both in our wedding and  are pretty much family.  Before our move, it was quite common for one of us to call the other for dinner and be like, "what are you having for dinner? ....ok, coming over", with kids in tow.

That made our kids become like family.  Beckett and Addison were buds since birth and I hate that now they may only see each other once a year.  But just like when you get back together with great friends after a long time away, you pick up right where you left off.....it was the same for our kids and I loved getting to see that!

We did just that, went back to "normal".  We hung around the house, picked up Chuys, ate cupcakes, and played outside.  It was awesome.

and this picture just kills me!  Beckett is totally feeling my pain sometimes as this girl can literally TALK YOUR EAR OFF.

and I pretty much just want to eat this little guy up!  Davis is completely adorable.

 Cupcakes were a big hit with everyone.

and some instagram love....

Chuy's creamy jalapeno

 love this picture!  Their faces kill me.  Birthday celebration number 6 if anyone is still counting.

 Heading home....

 and wiped out.

Amazing, amazing trip.  Addison has said, "I miss Texas" about 100 times since we returned.

She also says she's hot when she goes outside and it's 70 degrees.

I might be doing my kids a disservice by only going back to Texas in March every year.

The Woodlands, as told through the Iphone

There is nothing like going "home".  The community where we lived in Houston was just that.  There is nothing like The Woodlands, especially when you have memories of great neighbors, friends, an amazing church, starting your marriage there, and having your babies.  

When the time comes for us to move back to Houston, I know I will have such mixed feelings about leaving San Diego.  I can honestly say that San Diego is home now.  We've been here almost three years, have amazing friends and have fallen in love with almost everything California including the weather, the beautiful scenery, the beach, and the salsa....yes, the salsa,... don't get me started.

But knowing, that it's pretty realistic to say we won't be here forever, when the time comes to go back to Houston, I PRAY that we will be able to find a home in The Woodlands that will make Andy forget about the hour commute.  Ugh.  

Seriously, I know two people (that I met out here and live here) that are moving to The Woodlands this summer, and I'm jealous.  Not because I want to leave here, but because they get to go THERE.

That's how much I love that place.

Now I'm done.

So part of our trip back to Texas found us in our old neck of the "Woods" as much as time would allow.  Whether it was meeting friends for a playdate.....

or meeting Andy's parents for dinner (who went out of their way to drive from Oklahoma to see us!)

where we celebrated the birthday girl yet again....

and then enjoyed the Waterway a bit

While we were there we went back to our old neighborhood and had so much fun catching up, and then like old times, everyone headed to the park.  And Graham made the best of it, secure in his manhood enough to rock pink....because you do what you've got to do.

On to the Donats

So, we're still on the Houston trip....one day I will catch up.

We went from seeing family on one side of the city to heading into town to pay some of our closest friends a visit.  Jacqueline and I were college roommates for 4 years and she actually can take credit for introducing Andy and I .....twice.  That's a story for another time.

We had traveled with them back in October for a fun wine trip in Oregon but I hadn't seen her two little guys in over a year...and that was just way too long.  Thank goodness for Facebook and Instagram, so I wasn't entirely shocked to see that they were 15 month old go getters!

We had fun hanging around their FABULOUS new home, catching up, watching the kids, and playing at the park.  I hate direct sun shots, which all of these are, but fun must be documented, and I didn't want to worry about stuff like that, ya know?