Category / Parties + Holidays

For Crew’s 8th birthday, we opted to burn allll the energy on a cold December evening with his friends – we rented some turf and voila, a soccer party!

Between a an extra-long Christmas break (due to a blizzard) and non-stop temps that didn’t allow us to get outside, this was the BEST way to spend an evening over break. The boys all played hard for an hour, reffed by Page.

The next hour was spent in a party room, playing soccer bingo for prizes (anything to build in some sit-still time ha!), pizza, donuts, presents, and eventually more make-shift soccer with many of the balloons. #boys

For favors, we sent each kiddo with a baggie of Airheads (Crew’s current fave), Fun Dip, and soccer ball fidget spinners.

A fun night with just our oldest, the most grateful kiddo. So happy to focus on just him and celebrate this awesome EIGHT YEAR OLD (who, bonus — is old enough to help with setup and tear down now ha!).

And just a little proof that boys – and this age right now – are the actual cutest.

Maybe it’s that a lot of our friends are past the baby stage these past couple years. Maybe it’s that she’s a stay home, non-daycare kid. And maybe it’s that dang Cooties era we’ve been living in the past couple years since she was born. Whatever the reason…these pandemic babies just don’t have as many friends 🙂 So we invited….the dogs.

Greer loooooves herself some puppy dogs, so we ran with the theme. And while we were at it, I invited our many neighbor dogs to stop by for a pat and a treat…and to our delight, they showed UP!

She may have been a little overwhlemed to see so many at ONCE just outside her door, but she asked to go out for “more dogs” multiple times the rest of the day!

We handed out Bocce Bakery birthday cake treats to the dogs, along with various sizes of tennis balls as party favors.

Back inside, we had the table spread with some leftover turf (courtesy of her dad, and fitting giving it was also Masters Sunday!), some fire hydrant cups for her and her brother, Scooby snacks, and dog and bone and paw print sugar cookies.

I topped her chocolate cake with the sweetest pup candles that turned out to be worth every cent, because after she exploded with happiness when we sang and she blew them out…we proceed to do so again. Six more times, to her delight.

I found my paper through Rifle, but Mimi also had the cutest puppy party hat paper, and I’m kicking myself I didn’t get a picture of it. The puppy-themed gifts from friends and family were all so thoughtful — and could (likely will!) be a whole other post. She is already obsessed with a sweet little puppy suitcase and a miniature dog, pillow, and blanket that fit inside. And in a one of a kind gift, our neighbor dog, Eddie, who sends selfies to Greer on the regular, created a book just for her. I know — are you tearing up!?

Happy *SECOND* birthday to our girl. There’s no one on the planet we’d rather paw-ty with.

It was simply *magical* to get to throw a birthday party this year after endless months of no gatherings. You opted for SkyZone so my options to decorate were pretty limited on site…so we decorated at home for cake (donut) cutting with Papa and Mimi!

Favorite memory: you performing a magic trick for your audience of buddies. Happy SEVEN!!!

There was no big blowout first birthday party, but even better — we celebrated at home the four of us, and then with Papa and Mimi the following weekend. The theme was clementines and oranges and the puns ran rampant 🙂 Orange you cute?! Our CUTIE is one! Oh My Darlin’…we could just SQUEEZE you! 🙂

I made your vanilla cake and added some orange ombre to the vanilla frosting, topping it with sweet little felt orange slice toppers and a name banner I made.

Even with a small gathering, we hung allllll the balloons in pinks and oranges, and strung up your monthly flower photos for a total of twelve. Thanks to Mimi, you had the most perfect orange jammies to start your party morning in!

We made it into a double celebration of Greer + Papa, so his favorite, carrot cake, appropriately fit the color scheme as well!

You LOVED being sung to, and were especially animated about your sparkler candle. You dug into your cupcake and left very little for cleanup! 🙂

Happy first birthday to our Greer Girl! We can’t wait to see what’s in store for you this next trip around the sun!

Like with everything else this past year, plans pivoted and we got creative. There were no parties, but Papa and Mimi as always brought the fun, and I tried to make it feel as “party” as I could despite the quiet and lack of chaos.

We did a full spread of treats and Mario paraphernalia. I even leaned in to all the branded character stuff this year because WHY NOT — this was the year to do it. Banners, door covers, it all went up in a crazy attempt to make it feel so over the top we’d forget this wasn’t normal.

I made your favorite sugar cookies to look like the stars from the game and used the Cricut to DIY some signage and a cake topper to round out the theme.

We had a tower of krispy kremes in lieu of a cake. In place of friends and party games, I set up gold coin boxes with dollar bills and coins inside all over the house to find like a sort of egg hunt – for one. 🙂

Of course, there was a lot of Mario Kart played with the guys and you got a major kick out of blindfolding us all to play pin the mustache on Luigi.

Looking back, it’s actually one of my favorite birthdays of yours. It was slower, but selfishly that meant I could soak it up more, there was less to prepare and it came together so easily, and you enjoyed it as much as any other birthday.

No matter what’s going on in the world, celebrating you is always easy. Cheers to Level SIX!