I'm excited to finally share the details of Katherine's 4th birthday party from last weekend.  She requested an Elena of Avalor party, so I went all out with a taco bar, chips with homemade guacamole, salsa, and pico de gallo, and a make-your-own-margarita bar. 

Katherine had a four layer homemade birthday cake and cupcakes, and Elena decorations galore (thanks to Party City).

{Elena cupcake toppers}

{Katherine's birthday shirt}

Oh how I love throwing a birthday party, but boy was I tired after this one was over.  I would like to give a BIG thank you to everyone who came to celebrate our four-year-old!  She had a ball and I hope everyone else did too. 

Recipes: guacamole, pico del gallo, watermelon pico de gallo, salsa (old recipe, but similar here)


(Links to Katherine's 1st birthday, 2nd birthday, and 3rd birthday)

Here's another Halloween recap blog post to add to your weekly reading. 

This was our first Halloween in our new house, and we had heard from neighbors that our neighborhood (and the one a street over) went all out for this holiday.  They were right.  We had the best Halloween, trick or treating with Katherine and catching up with neighbors. 


Monday was also my birthday, so we started the day off with birthday lunch followed by birthday cupcakes. Luckily our local grocery store carries our favorite cupcakes from Jilly's. 


Later we headed out to the driveway to participate in Halloween festivities.  My parents came by for my birthday and to hold down the candy fort while we took Katherine trick or treating. 



Katherine did pretty well on the candy front, bringing home pounds of candy. She won't be coming down off her sugar high any time soon. 

Now I've got to go get my shorts out of the storage box in the basement because it's 82 degrees outside.  Happy November!

Our girl turned three on Saturday.  I know every parent in the history of the world has said they can't believe how time flies, but it's true.  It still feels like yesterday that she was born, and was this fragile little thing.  And now.....she seems so grown up. 

Katherine had a great birthday and an even better birthday party, despite a series of unfortunate events. 

I was super excited when Katherine's birthday fell on a Saturday this year.  It became obvious that we would be hosting her party at my parents' house this year, so we ordered invitations and officially planned the party for March 12. 

Not long after setting the date, we learned that the small community that my parents' live in hosts an annual St. Patrick's Day parade that draws in about 60,000 people each year.  Guess what day the parade was scheduled for?  If you guessed March 12, then you are right.  We soon learned that all major roads leading to and around my parents' house would be closed or blocked for the better part of the day.  It seemed like it would make for a rough day, but we persevered. 

After a slight issue with some of our dessert orders for the party were cleared up two days before the party, I figured we had seen the last of our party problems and we were all in the clear.  Then Friday morning I was awakened at 6:45 a.m. by the sounds of jackhammering.  I looked out the window and saw a street crew "fixing" the street in front of my parents' driveway.

No! No! No no no no no no no no no!

Yep.  They were in fact breaking up the concrete in front of my parents' house and driveway to pour brand new concrete that would need to set over the weekend. 

#$@%%$#$^*!!!

It's ok.  We would overcome.

Party day brought lots and lots of people to the neighborhood, parking their cars up and down the street to attend this God forsaken parade, leaving little room for our party guests to maneuver between the cones blocking the fresh concrete. 

But alas, our party guests were led in the back way through the neighborhood and we still had an amazing turnout. 

It really was a great day and we're so grateful to everyone who came to celebrate our sweet girl at her Inside Out birthday party. 

We had our traditional donut birthday breakfast and before we knew it, it was party time. 

Katherine's t-shirt, bow

"Joy" cardboard cutout

Food tents

Cookies

Cake

Cupcake (Walmart) toppers: DIY

Katherine received her very own karaoke machine for her birthday (thank you North County Angels), so she was happy to entertain the crowd after cake. 

Speaking of cake, I cannot say enough about how delicious the cake and cookies were!  Because we were at the mercy of my parents, I outsourced all baked goods this year to local bakeries, while my mom and I made the food for the party.  (Thank you Pioneer Woman for your awesome party food ideas!)

The house was full of love and laughter and we couldn't have asked for a better time. 

Thank you to my parents for opening up your home to our crazy friends and family and to my mom for all the help in the kitchen!  We literally couldn't have done it without you! 

Back in January I asked Katherine what kind of birthday party she wanted.  She said, "cake."  I asked, "So you want a 'cake' party?"  She said, "yes, cake."  I thought about how I could make a "cake" birthday party happen.  So, the Sprinkle Birthday Party idea was born.  I reused all of our DIY cake stands from last year and added some new fresh decorations, like DIY colorful paper garlands and confetti.

On Saturday, we hosted Katherine's 2nd birthday party.  There were lots of family and friends in attendance and I'm grateful for all who came.  I'll probably be picking up stray sprinkles off of the floor for months, but overall it was a great party.

I won't bore you with a wordy play-by-play of the day, so here's a ton of pictures to look at:



















If there was a way to add sprinkles to any food, I did it.  We had sprinkled strawberries, sprinkled popcorn, sprinkled pretzels, cupcakes, cake pops.....you get the idea.  Everything on the menu for this party was homemade, including the popular Funfetti Cake Cheese Ball (recipe here).

I made Katherine's "2" shirt by tracing a 2 onto gold glitter iron-on material, then cutting it out and ironing it on a shirt that I bought at Target.  The party straws we used came from here.

We ended the day with some outside time, enjoying one of our new toys.


We were so blessed by the turnout for Katherine's party and would like to thank everyone who came to help celebrate.

A quick Katherine-ism before we go:
Before her party started I was trying to get a good photo of Katherine in her "party" outfit.  I kept asking her to smile, but she refused.  Instead she marched straight towards the camera and said, "close up."  So we took a close up.  After which I noticed ketchup still stuck to the corners of her mouth.