A Yo Gabba Gabba Birthday!

One of Callie's favorite things to do is watch Yo Gabba Gabba on TV. She loves the songs, the characters, and gets so excited every time its on. I decided that YGG would be the theme for her 2nd birthday party.

Honestly, this was probably the easiest party to plan. There are so many resources out there to make it so easy! I would love to be able to say that all of these ideas were mine, but the truth is, I think all of them were someone else's. Between Etsy, NickJr, and a few blogs of other moms who have thrown YGG parties for their children, I was able to plan a pretty cute party. Callie had a blast and I think it turned out better than I expected!

You can see all of the pictures here if you are my Facebook friend, but these are some (ok...a LOT) of my favorites :)

"The Invitation"

I ordered these fully personalized from Celebrate Express

The Birthday Girl posing while waiting for guests to arrive...

She LOVES balloons :)

She had fun greeting her guests...

...a kiss for baby Ryan...

...a hug for Tristan...

...more hugs for her favorite friend Maddie....

...saying hello to mommy's good friend "Auntie Mariella" and Callie's buddy Santi...

...hugs for Michael :)

"Craft time"

Coloring pages printed from the internet...

Yo Gabba Gabba Character Masks printed from Nick Jr.

Callie wearing her Toodee mask

Maddie in her Toodee Mask

Cory in his Muno mask

YGG puppets printed from Nick Jr.

Cory and Maddie with Plex and Foofa

Cody with Plex

Callie with Foofa

For the older kids, I printed "fortune tellers" for them to make from Nick Jr.

Dolly and Cody making their fortune tellers

Cody with his finished product...

Big brother Cam with his fortune teller

"The Spread"

"The Decorations"

I saw a similar banner on Etsy. It was around $30 plus shipping (which I believe was around $7). I couldn't pay that much for something I knew I could make...so I borrowed a Cricut machine, picked up some card stock and ribbon, and this is what came out...

The YGG backgrounds were printed from Nick Jr. I cut them and taped them together. The figures are actually cupcake toppers that I purchased from Celebrate Express.

All of the balloons were ordered from Kroger except for the red "2" balloons which came from Celebrate Express

This is my favorite one :)

YGG plates and napkins were purchased from Celebrate Express. I just picked up plain supplies in different YGG colors for the plates, cups, and spoons.

"The Treats"

Goody bag printables from Nick Jr. I found a package of plain bags with all of the colors I needed at Party City, cut and glued the characters, and voila! I only made these goody bags for the younger kids. They had a few extra things (toys, stickers, rings, etc.) that I ordered from Celebrate express or purchased at Party City.

All of the guests got a candy bar. I purchased a printable .pdf file from a vendor on Etsy who personalized and emailed the file to me within 24 hours. I believe it was $5 and well worth the time I saved making it myself.

Candy bags were in the goody bags, but I gave one to all of the older kids as well. I just made these in Microsoft Word and printed them on card stock. I put candy in zippered bags and used glue dots to attach the card stock.

"The Food"

Purchased from the same Etsy vendor as the candy wrappers. These were in a .pdf file and printed 5 per sheet. I just cut them apart with a paper cutter and glued them on the bottles. My kids really enjoyed removing the original labels :)

I thought it would be cute to have a treat for each character. After a lot of surfing around I found a few really good ideas. Only a couple of them were my own...the least creative ones :)

"Plex's Electric Yellow Lemonade"

I actually came up with this idea because I happened to have a container of lemonade mix and we needed drinks :)

The labels for the food were made with Microsoft Word and printed on card stock then layered on colored card stock.

"Muno's Pretzel Pals"

This idea came from another blogger who had a YGG party for her child. I'm not sure how she made hers, but I bought red candy melts, dipped the pretzel rods, and attached candy eyes that I found at Michaels on clearance. This was SO easy and they were a HIT! They were gone in no time!!!

"Foofa's Strawberry Garden"

I saw a picture on line of someone who had made these, but I actually had the idea to turn them upside down...after all, the strawberry is the same shape as Foofa's head...I dipped the strawberries in pink candy melts and the flowers were cut out of card stock on a Cricut machine and I used glue dots to attach them to toothpicks.

"Brobee's 'Party in Your Tummy' Veggies"

This idea came to me because I couldn't find anything online for Brobee. I decided that we needed something without sugar. It just so happens that Callie's two favorite veggies are tomatoes and cucumbers, so I peeled the cucumbers to look like Brobee's stripes and there you have it...

"Toodee's Marshmallow Pops"

This idea also came from a blogger, but I did them a bit differently and not as neat. I dipped the marshmallows in blue candy melts, sprinkled on some blue sugar, bought lollipop sticks at the craft store, and stuck them in a block of Styrofoam wrapped in foil. I would serve these differently if I had it to do over, but the kids enjoyed eating them, so that's all that matters :)

"THE CAKE"

The first thing I searched for when I chose the theme was the cake...I mean, what's a party without a cake? I had an idea in mind but couldn't find any pictures that were similar. I saw this cake on a few blogs but decided that it would be WAY out of my budget and put it in the back of my mind. I found some ideas and had ultimately decided to just do cupcakes with the character's faces. I had a hard time finding anyone who was available the weekend of her party, so I was getting nervous and trying to decide if I could pull off making the cupcakes. Then my dad said that he had a friend who could do it, so just for fun I emailed her a picture of this cake to see if she was willing to do it and if it would fit in my budget...and I was THRILLED to find out that it was going to work! I was so happy with how it turned out and Callie loved it! She couldn't wait to dig in :)

blowing out her candles...

having a taste :)

She loved it!

"The Presents"

Callie got a lot of very nice gifts from her guests. One of her favorites was a set of metal pots and pans from Mamma (my grandma). She LOVES to pretend cooking and these have been loved a lot since the party!

She also really liked the balloon from Mariella...

Birthday party Princess Aurora...

Smiles with Mamma :)

What a happy Birthday Girl!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Callie Grace!

Today my precious girl turned two. I LOVE this age! She's exploring, learning, growing. I love that she can now communicate with us. She's talking so much and repeats everything you ask her to.

Some of our favorite things to hear her say:

"Tamit" - which means "Cameron" but sounds a little like another word, so we just call him "Bubby" for now :)

"I fywit" (I'm flying)

"I shoppit" (I'm shopping)

"Tum on bubby" (Come on Bubby - when she wants him to come play)

"Nummy Mama?" (when I eat my lunch she always asks if it's 'nummy')

"Faynt Ew" (Thank You)

"Sawwy" (Sorry)

"I lub ew soooo much" (I love you so much)

"too heaby" (too heavy)

There are TONS more things, but that's just a few of my favorites...

Her favorite foods right now are "Appeesauce", "Chiten" (chicken), "Beenana", "Twomato", "Shoup", and "Wunch" (Lunch - which are the Gerber graduate ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese or turkey and veggies...she'd eat them every day if I let her) also of course "Tookees" (cookies).

Callie is still a tiny girl. We don't have her check up until next week, so I'll update on her weight and length later. She's wearing size 18 month clothes and size 4 shoes. She wears size 3 diapers at night but we use pull ups during the day. She is doing pretty well with potty training. She'll go for two or three days with no accidents, then go for a day without going potty once. She'll get there soon enough...I'm not too worried about it at this point.

Callie loves to sing...she sings pretty much of the time. You can tell her to sing the "daddy" song or the "mommy" song or any name that you want and she'll just start singing that person's name. It's cute :) She likes to sing her ABC's, but she doesn't know them all yet. When she sings it goes something like "Abc's abc's dubbayew x y an z I know abc's nes time sing wip meeeee"

She is pretty dramatic and can have quite an attitude at times. Right now it's cute, but we try not to give her too much attention for it because we know that the older she gets the less cute it will be. But it's hard not to laugh when she stomps her little foot and crosses her arms.

She is very helpful around the house. She loves helping mommy do the chores in the morning. She loves helping me switch the laundry. When she sees me go to the washing machine, she'll run over and say "I hep you?" I hand her the laundry and she throws it into the dryer. Cam used to do the same thing. It takes a lot longer, but it's soooo cute! She likes helping me make the beds, too. She'll carry the pillows to me and say "too heaby". She'll take the pillow cases off of the pillows and say "I did it!". She also is good about cleaning up her toys. She'll sing "teen up teen up airybody teen up" I'm not sure where she learned that, but I'm guessing she learned it in her Sunday school class.

I could go on and on and on. She's doing so many new things, talking so much, and just being as cute as she can be. I am so blessed to have such a sweet little girl.

Here are some pictures from her Birthday Dinner at Red Robin :)

singing to everyone :)

"I so sywid" (so excited!)

How sweet is that face?

enjoying her "chiten" or "chickee"

She wasn't sure what to think when the waiters sang to her...

...but she didn't take her eyes off of them...

...and as soon as they walked away, she was ALL about the ice cream :)

YUM!

And of course you can't leave Red Robin without a balloon!

My sweet boy :)

The other day I had a van load of stuff to drop off at Goodwill, so I asked Cam to ride with me. We don't get to spend a lot of one on one time together, so I thought it would be nice to just chat even though it was a short ride.

I didn't have any pressing issues that needed to be discussed, but I want him to feel comfortable talking to me in general so that it won't be too hard for him to come to me when it's really important.

So, I just started asking him random questions..."What is your favorite number?" (it's 999) "What is your favorite day of the week?" (Friday) "What is your favorite season?" (Summer) and I was actually surprised how much conversation this started. It was fun hearing him explain why these were his answers and believe it or not it is all stuff I didn't know about my kid! Most mom's with boys will agree that if you want a lot of information you have to pry...boys don't offer up a lot of talk. After school I have learned to ask specific questions because if I ask "How was your day?" I get "Good" as an answer every time.

The next question he answered surprised me. I asked "What is your favorite month?" I waited for the answer I knew he would give which was "December" because he loves Christmas and his birthday is in December. Instead he said "April". "April?" I asked..."why?" His answer brought tears to my eyes..."Because that is the month that I became a brother."

Of course my heart melted! It also opened up the opportunity for me to praise him about what a great big brother he is. I told him that I was certain that he was placed on this earth to be a big brother. He is so patient and loving with his sister. I worried that being so far apart in age would keep them from being close, but he does so much for her. He takes care of her, plays dress up with her, has tea parties with her, and loves her more than I ever could have imagined.

It brought me back to the years when we didn't think he would ever be a brother. He would ask for a brother or sister every night in his bed time prayer. It broke my heart. Now that we have our little girl, I can see that things worked out exactly as they should have.

I am blessed beyond measure by both of my kids. I am so thankful for the relationship that they have. I love being a mommy!