Plans never go as planned...

As usual, I take a lot of time to prepare for birthday parties..well parties in general. I plan everything. How many people? How many kids? Are there going to be infants? Food allergies? Themes? EVERYTHING!

For this party I tried to find a theme that could work for both a girl and a boy who are two years apart. Obviously I couldn't do a transformer and a my little pony theme at the same time. That would be even more time and money spent. So I opted for a cowboy/cowgirl theme. I always start by making lists. Lots of lists.

I like to make a lot of homemade decorations, and get creative. As usual I took a gander at pintrest for some ideas. I knew I wanted to make a fabric banner and I already had two different kinds of fabric prints in cowgirl that I had bought for a project last year. So I ran to Hancock Fabric and picked up some boy print. I watched a couple videos but none of them really satisfied my need to make them look a little more rustic. So I made myself a triangle template, and cut out about 3 triangles from each fabric. Then I found some 5/8" white grosgrain ribbon then positioned the triangles on top to get a feel for how far apart I wanted then to be. My original plan was to place Carter and Kayla's baby pictures in between the triangles. Once I got them where I wanted I pinned them to the ribbon, then sewed them with a basic straight stitch on my sewing machine. Now on majority of the videos I watched they stitched the triangles on the back of the ribbon, but I was looking for something a little different so I stitched them to the front. Then I added some rustic looking ribbon. It really looked cute!

Every party needs some kind of a "Happy Birthday" banner. So that was next in my to do list. I downloaded some western looking don't to my computer then printed my letters out. Two sets. One set white, one set black and one was larger than the other. Cutting out each individual letter twice took a LONG time. Very daunting to think about, but I got it done and it looked super cute.

I like to make goody bags and what better way to get your cowboy/girl gear. I started out by getting some cowboy and cowgirl hats from dollar tree. I got as many colors as I could (pink, purple, brown, black, blue).  While I was there I also picked up some bubbles and crayons. Then I started thinking about what else a cowboy or cowgirl would need when "on the range", and the first thing that popped into my head was trail mix. So I made some trail mix that included some healthy treats and wrapped it into some brown and black tulle then tied some string around it. Then I printed off some coloring pages and started sorting through my mess. Eventually everything ended up in a brown lunch bag that looked like a money bag with a sheriff badge to top it off.

So after taking A LOT of time and patience to make this a fun and exciting party for my kids we get everything packed up and head to Ohio where the party will take place. Carter wanted pie so I picked up an apple and a strawberry rhubarb pie. I made Kayla a "Strawberry Dream Cake that turned out not too dreamy. I felt rushed so I rushed the cake and although it was super delicious it definitely didn't look pretty. My mom and I made chili which turned out great if I do say so myself.

DAY OF THE PARTY:
I am always a nervous wreck the day of the party and I usually always have the decorations already done the night before but since we were having the party a park 35 minutes away everything had to be done the day of the party. First off we were running late, and as it was turning out Ohio weather wasn't cooperating with us AT ALL! It was just too windy. I couldn't hang any of my decorations that I took so much time making. I couldn't put those cute little bags I made up on the picnic tables because they would just blow away. It was horrible. NOTHING and I mean nothing went as planned.

BUT at least the kids had fun and got to see all of their friends and family from Ohio.