Celebrate with Tigger and Pooh

A little note ~ I started Ava's birthday post months ago, probably not as punctual as six months ago when Ava's birthday was BUT I did at least start it. And I realized it never got published. I figure that before I post Gavin's birthday pictures, I should give sister some bloggy time.

Ava's second birthday was a lot of fun to plan and thankfully fairly inexpensive as we either had or made many of the decorations. The biggest expense was going to be the cake but at the last minute our cake lady had a family emergency.  So, I did not break my streak of making the kids' cakes. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but a big thanks to Pinterest and my husband for being there every step of the way.

For the invitations, we took pictures of Ava in the backyard with a few 100 Acre Wood friends. Dave then used his creative genius to design the invite. Several pictures were in the running, but we settled on this one.

Guests were greeted by the dancing and talking Tigger and Pooh my mother in law let us borrow. 

 

We may or may not have an assortment of large Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals. Each kid took their picture and got their copy in a thank you note. 

 

Ava is holding the only surviving Tigger from my toddler years and I had many.

 The party favors were bags of Honey Combs. As a parent I am realizing that less take home items, means less little toys to pick up everywhere. Excuse the Nutcracker in the background. It was four days before Christmas.

A lot of the food items came from various Pinned items. For the food labels, I took two Popsicle sticks, broke one in three pieces and hot glued them together on a cardboard base. Then I covered the base with moss and borrowed Pooh Bear's fancy writing style. 

 

 Here's Rabbit's Vegetable Garden and Roo's Ranch Dip as well as Piglets in a blanket.

 

The Hunny Bee cakes were simply white cupcakes I picked up and added white sprinkles and candy bees to the top.  

 

And while the cake did not look professional looking, I managed to hide some of the imperfections with ribbon and fresh flowers. The honey infused cake tasted pretty yummy though. So that the plush Tigger and Pooh could sit on top of the cake, I cut out a piece of cardboard into a circle and hot glued more moss to the top.

 

One of my favorite ways to decorate for parties are with flowers, pictures and books that tie into the theme. I have even snuck in some flowers for Gavin's parties before.

 

Since this was a party for a two year old, we tried to make the activities toddler friendly. First up- coloring pages. I bought a couple of terra cotta pots and painted them yellow on top to look like honey. Then added the word Hunny in black paint. Some of the pots were also used to hold utensils on the table.

It was cheap/cute decoration and one of these pots is currently used as decoration in our play room.

 The kids played toss the bees in the bucket. I glued some black felt around bean bags and added yellow felt stripes.

And of course there was pin the tail on Eyeore.

 And what two year old doesn't love a fancy new ride to cap off her birthday?

Bluebonnets- A Texas Tradition

 Oh, how I just love these two. They really do melt my heart. My sweet husband offered to take us to the Hill Country for Bluebonnet pictures, but I decided I really wanted to take pictures of the kids in the patches of bluebonnets at my grandparents' house. It made the pictures all the more special. My grandfather was in the hospital at the time, but my grandmother was able to watch the craziness that goes on taking pictures of these two. 

 

And while one of these two is a little less affectionate, they do love each other.

 

I got a few pictures of them together, but we find it's usually much easier to get separate shots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toward the end of the photo shoot, the kids had an impromptu round of Ring Around the Rosies.

And we all fell down. Some were just more happy about it than others.

Resurrection Day

This year it had been on my heart to make Easter more intentional. I wanted it to be less about rabbits, chicks, and candy, but more about our Savior. I barely put out any of the decorations from our Easter box and instead D and I tried to center our conversations and even our activities around the glorious and gruesome days that come to mind during this Easter season.

We missed being able to celebrate with our family because Ava developed a virus with symptoms of a high fever and soar throat that simply had to run its course. Thankfully she had been fever free long enough for us to rejoice in Resurrection Day with our church family. And quite honestly, I was sad that we did not get to be with our families, but it gave our core family sweet time to help our kids focus on what Easter truly is about. We had more time to read the Easter story in our Bible. The kids played with the 12 day countdown to Resurrection Day Eggs. Gavin's excitement about Easter transformed from looking for eggs to the fact that Jesus has risen. Even Ava at two years old, seemed to understand. One night, it was her turn to pray. She usually just repeats what we help her say in short phrases. We started with, "Thank you, for Jesus, dying," and she without help finished, "on the cross." It melted my heart.

Before lunch, we took a few family photos. Ok, we took a lot but it's hard to get pictures of a busy two year old.

      

                                

      

                     

      

 

           

      

 

 We didn't do away with all Easter traditions though. Each kid still had an Easter basket which we explained that just like God gives us good things, Mommy and Daddy like to give good things to our kids.

   

                  We also did a fun egg hunt in the backyard for our two kids.                     

      

    

 We all ended up having so much fun because a few confetti eggs were thrown into the mix. We all got "egged" but D and I got an unexpected treat as we watched Ava being delighted with the confetti flying out of the eggs. She would shake the egg and squeal with delight.

                 

         

We even had time to blow bubbles for the kids. That sounds like such a little thing, but with the amount of rushing around that we do, it was a much needed break.