Apparently I have given myself a reputation of throwing a really good party, and well the word is out! A friend of mine from church just brought her #7 bundle into the world and asked me to help her plan her daughters 8th 'Frozen' themed birthday party. I was thrilled to take on the challenge! The planning and creating kept me quite busy last week, but I love when I get to plan a party! It's always so exciting to get on Pinterest and see all the many wonderful ideas that others have come up with and then incorporate my own into the mix! With Frozen being the 'in' thing, there were limitless ideas already out there. So fun!
I don't know about you, but the first thing that I think about when I think of 'Frozen' is snow! Lots and lots of snow!!! And snowflakes!!! And ice!!! And cold!!! And I can't forget snowmen, that love warm hugs!!! So off to work I went, in search of whatever winter clearance items I could get my hands on!
Do you think that when I started searching for these items at the stores, it would be something that I could find? Of course, with it being January and the Christmas season behind us, all of the winter stuff was taken down, put away, and replaced with Valentines Day items! Are you kidding me? Everywhere that I went, I walked in to find an entire empty isle, lined with boxes of hearts and candy and red EVERYTHING, waiting to be put on the shelves! This wasn't going to be as easy as I thought, but it wasn't going to stop me either!
The first thing that I got to work on was Sage's birthday banner…
Sage wanted lots of blue's, white's, and silver's as her colour scheme, which went perfect with the Frozen theme. I found sparkly, blue snowflake card stock at our local craft store for $3.99 a piece (are you kidding me??!!), on sale for 50% off, so I bought two and decided that I would have to make do with that. One for the banner and one for the cute little paper trees that I was making to add to the decor. Luckily they had some cheaper sparkly silver and white paper for not nearly as much and I could mix it up a little. For the rest, I just used regular craft paper that Sage's mommy had in her craft supplies. Score!
Here are the fancy trees that I made…
The one on the left, I just happened to pick up off a clearance rack at Party City. The only thing that I could find that related to winter or Frozen or even the colour that I needed! The rest were just made out of card stock. They look so cute on the table buried in the cotton 'snow'! I loved them!
Sage and I found some really cute 'Elsa crowns' on Pinterest and she just had to have them. They were so easy to make! I got my super talented hubby to free hand a template for me and I cut them out of sheets of coloured foam. Next I glued glitter (which I will never do again as it took me 4 hours to do 14 crowns) with rubber cement, hole punched each side and tied a white ribbon through each hole for them to tie onto their pretty little girl heads. I was pretty tired by this point and decided that the hand cut snowflakes that I was going to make for each one (I couldn't find anything to do with snowflakes ANYWHERE!!! and free handing it was my back up) had to go! I made one and placed it on Sage's crown to make hers the special birthday girl crown.
Sage's little brothers would be attending the party as well but couldn't possibly wear an 'Elsa crown' so I made them little 'Sven' antlers to wear instead, courtesy of my hubby's amazing talents again. He laughs because this is such a simple thing to draw, but I couldn't draw it if my life depended on it.
A snowflake committee commenced at some point during the party preparations and thanks to my friends, Erica, Roya and Kathy, we had plenty of beautiful white snowflakes made out of doilies to add to the decorations!
I bought lots of other pretty blue, white and silver items to make the party just right and by Friday night,
after making the blue chocolate dipped marshmallows,
and a visit from Sage's mommy and daddy (who were stopping in for just a quick second, but we kept them talking until midnight and their brand new, week old baby girl was at home screaming her little lungs out with grandma…I'm soooo sorry Elora!), I was as ready as I was going to be.
I had planned to be at the church, where the party was being held, by 9am, but as Saturday mornings usually go in our house, we didn't end up getting there until after 11am and I was stressed (but careful to hide that small detail from Sage's mommy who had just delivered a baby, is caring for all of her other children, planning a birthday party, as well as a blessing and a baptism for the next day! if anybody was entitled to be stressed, it was her, not me!).
Before we left, I got my girls all dolled up, doing their hair like Elsa and Anna, whom they love to think that they are when they play together. They looked so cute!
Kali, my oldest daughter had her hair done like Elsa,
and my little Lili like Anna.
Haha! I laugh out loud every time I look at this picture of Lili. She was sad because I brushed her hair.
We made it to the church and got straight to work, with me as bossy as usual, snapping at my poor husband every time that he did anything slightly different from what I had asked him to do. I'm pretty sure that he was ready to walk out the door on me the moment I said, "Oh Andrew, Kathy asked me to help her with Sage's birthday party"! He knows me well enough by now that if there is a party in progress, my role as a wife and mother get put aside. But he never does walk out that door. He patiently helps me with whatever I need, every time I make the decision to start another party planning adventure, ignoring the mess of the house, lack of groceries and clean laundry, and always lovingly pep-talking me through my last minute melt down at the very end of it all, when I feel like it isn't going to come together the way that I wanted it to. He knows how much I love looking at all of the pictures afterwards and posting them all on Facebook to brag to my Facebook world about how much I had just accomplished (while meanwhile my entire life is falling apart around me) and he always reassures me of how successful everything went, despite my chaotic lifestyle for the weeks leading up to it. It's amazing the simple things that make us realize just how lucky we are to have such incredible people in our lives! (I just turned to Andrew and said, "Oh, you're getting praise in this one baby! Everyone is going to be telling you that you're the man!". It would be awesome if you did! His confidence would boost, even though he would never show it, that wonderful, humble man that he is!)
Just as we were about ready for the party to begin, Sage's friends starting walking in, one by one, and before long all 12 girls were ready to party!
I'm glad that I was too busy to notice that my banner had fallen because I would have been quite sad about it. It would've made for a better picture had gravity not taken a toll on the thin string that it hung from.
Kali and Lili let their Elsa and Anna barbies join the party also!
Melted snow water bottles and cute little snowmen heads made by Sage's mommy! I already showed you my marshmallows.
Snowman building, snowflake decorating, and Roll-A-Snowman centres were set up for the kids to enjoy.
Can't forget Pin-The-Nose-On-Olaf game that once more, my talented hubby drew by special request from Sage! So fun!
On to opening presents and enjoying some yummy cake to finish off the birthday celebrations!
Overall, I'm pretty sure that Sage and her friends had an icy blast of a time! Okay, that was lame! Haha! Everyone seemed to leave happy, with their treat bags of candy, the edible snowmen that they made and their Elsa crowns! It was a great success!
After a quick clean up with a team of grandparents and friends to help out the party was over and I was ready for a big, long nap! (Kathy, if you are reading this, I loved every second of helping you out! Truly! And don't ever be scared to ask me again! Lol!)
Happy Birthday Sage!
I'm off to finish the last 3 chapters of my book that I ordered a couple of weeks ago, Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson. I'll be happy to tell you all about it tomorrow!
Nighty night all! Sweet dreams!
You and Andrew are AMAZING! I'm not sure how we would ever be able to do another party without your help. We appreciate all the time and hard work you put into it. I'm glad you didn't meltdown so much that you were cursing me for asking for your help. =) Love ya, girl!
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