diy – That Celebration Life

A Winnie-The-Pooh Themed Birthday Picnic

August 25, 2023August 25, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

Now that we are two years into it, I’m finding that every milestone with your littlest baby is bittersweet because you’re cognizant it’s the last time you are probably going to go through that experience. I find myself definitely holding on to things more (like hey, she still prefers using her baby bottle before bedtime…I’m completely OK with that!). As she approached her second birthday, I started to think about how we could celebrate meaningfully this year. Though she does attend some enrichment classes outside the home, since they aren’t every day and sometimes the attendance is spotty, her closest “friends” are her siblings and cousins, so I wanted to keep it small. It just so happened that we had a little vacation to Santa Barbara planned with both of my sisters and their families (the first time we’ve done that), so it seemed like the perfect opportunity since she would be together with all of her cousins on my side in one place.

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Birthdays, Girls Birthdays, Parties

A Dolphin Themed 2nd Birthday

August 19, 2023August 23, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

We just held my littlest one’s second birthday, but before I get to posting that one, I wanted to make sure I finished posting my older daughter’s 2nd birthday (…five years later!!). When my second child turned two, I reallllly wanted to throw her a Winnie the Pooh party because I personally love Winnie the Pooh. But despite my best efforts – reading Pooh stories, getting her Pooh toys, etc – she wasn’t into it! Instead, my free-spirited nature and animal loving girl was in love with dolphins at that time. I don’t recall if she was intrigued through books and toys first and then saw them at Sea World or the other way around, but either way, that was what she was into, and so it seemed only fitting for that to be her theme.

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Birthdays, Boys Birthdays, Parties

Our “Dragons Love Tacos” 8th Birthday Party

June 10, 2023June 23, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

For my son’s 8th, he chose a dragon theme. However, he also requested that we serve tacos that day. So naturally, to tie it all together, we turned it into a “Dragon Loves Tacos” theme, after the beloved storybook!

Since he wanted to invite his whole class, we held the party at a local park instead of our home. It’s such an expansive area, but we did our best to tie the theme together with the colors while creating separate “spaces” for the various activities.

To establish the theme right off the bat, it started with the party invitation. I created a custom paperless post invitation that leveraged the style and characters from the storybook. I didn’t love the ones I was seeing available, so I created my own.

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Birthdays, Girls Birthdays, Parties

Our Water-Fairy Themed 6th Birthday Party

September 22, 2022June 23, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

This was a fun one to plan, albeit a new challenge! Last year was the first time my eldest daughter (my middle child) joined in on the party prep. This time, she was ready to be involved in some of the actual planning! It was new version of mother-daughter bonding and a sweet glimpse into the fun ahead of us as she continues to grow and develop her own creative personality.

This year, she has been very much into fairies. It was one of her favorite themes during pretend play this year, and trust me when I say we’ve role-played all iterations (mother-daughter, big sister-little sister, mother-baby, big sister-baby, twin sisters, etc! 😆)! So naturally, she wanted her birthday theme to be fairies. She had also been playing “afternoon tea” with her nanny regularly, as it was their favorite go-to theme while waiting for her brother during his extra-curriculars (over snacks of course). This would work out well, I thought, as a garden tea party fit in easily with a fairy theme!

The planning was going easy, until she had a change of heart at the end of the summer and wanted to pivot to a pool party. That shouldn’t be a problem, I thought. But she didn’t mean to change the theme; just that she wanted it to be a pool party also. When I mentioned that swimming would be hard to fit in with fairies or a tea party, she exclaimed, “I know, we can be water fairies! Pleeeease!” 😭

Well, I couldn’t say no to my sweet girl who has the biggest heart. So, water fairies it would be! 💗

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Birthdays, Girls Birthdays, Parties

Our Teddy-Bear Themed 1st Birthday for our Sweet Baby Bear

August 25, 2022June 23, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

This was a special one. She’s our third and probably last baby. I remember when we found out her due date – which was the same month as my other daughter – one of my first thoughts (embarrassingly) was how daunting it would be to have to plan two birthday parties in the same month. Yet when the time came, it wasn’t daunting at all. It came easily, for the planning process and making it special for her was just was a natural expression of my heart!

While every birthday is special, the 1st is unique in that it is a marker of such a meaningful milestone in our lives. It is the first full cycle around the sun, the first full course through all the seasons, the first full year of getting to know our baby; the only year she is a baby. We get to pause in gratitude for the immense joy she has added to our family and celebrate this little person that we’ve gotten to know – who she is and who she’s becoming.

With each of my kids, I wanted their 1st birthday party to reflect an element of who they were. For my son, it was his big personality and his love for music. For my other daughter, it was the light she brought and how she reflected the sunshine. For this precious one, I wanted to reflect her sincerity, her sweetness, and for lack of a better word, her cuteness.

While she was still in utero, the kids had begun calling her “Jellybean”. The name stuck, and we expanded on it as we got to know her. Her sweet nature lent itself to many nicknames along the way, including “Pumpkin,” “Little Strawberry”, “Baby Bear,” “Josiebear,” and more. As I thought about how to bring this to life, the concept of a dessert bar that reflected her sweetness as well as her many names came about. And since one of her primary nicknames was “Josiebear” due to her cute, round, pudgy self, I decided to wrap the whole theme around teddy bears.

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Birthdays, Girls Birthdays, Parties

A Unicorn-themed 5th birthday for my unicorn-obsessed girl

September 30, 2021June 23, 2023by christeena2 Comments

I’m not sure what it is about these magical, mystical creatures but sure enough, like so many other little girls out there, my daughter just can’t get enough of them! Unicorn stuffys, unicorn toys, unicorn dresses – she is obsessed. So when it came to picking a theme for her 5th birthday party, it was a no-brainer!

I initially wanted to see if there was any way to bring a unicorn to our home, but it turns out unicorns don’t really come that readily for hire. I found a couple of places that did something like that but they were very far away, extremely expensive, and did not travel to you.

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Other Celebrations, Parties

Our “Breaking Bad” Finale Party

September 29, 2021June 23, 2023by christeenaLeave a Comment

Just yesterday, upon discovering my blog, my friend reminded me of the Breaking Bad finale gathering I planned way back in the day before we had kids, which I had completely forgotten about. Well, lo and behold, thanks to facebook memories, the photos popped up on my feed today – apparently, it was exactly eight years ago that the Breaking Bad finale aired! I suppose before I had kids, I had to take any other opportunities toward which I could channel my party planning passion. 😝 So today, we’re taking a little journey into the past!

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