Story's Seventh Birthday Party! {Ever After High Party}

Seven, she really is SEVEN! She's going into second grade, is a great big sister, and is about to start gymnastics and swimming. She's growing up way too fast!

This year we knew her party would be a lot bigger. She's made a ton of friends at school so the list of guests was going to be big. This was also the first year we'd have the party at our house. The plan was to decorate the inside of the house, and have the food set up in the front room. That would allow the adults to congregate in the family room and the kids could play outside. Of course, it was around 65 degrees and rainy the afternoon of her party. So, we were all forced to cram in the small family room. It wasn't terrible, but I will definitely plan it differently next year!

Every year we let Story pick out the theme of her party. We go all out with party planning, it's our gift to her. She was a bit all over the place, trying to decide. She started by saying she wanted a Princess party and then narrowed it down to a Brave party?! (she doesn't even watch that movie) I threw out a couple of suggestions and her face lit up when I mentioned Ever After High. She loves the show and has a lot of the dolls.

I kept the decorations on the simpler side this time. The main reason for that was because of the custom dress we got her for her party! It took up a third of the budget. I kept the food simple as well because the party fell between lunch and dinner. We had fruit, veggies, cheese, tea sandwiches and chocolate covered strawberries and marshmellows.

Another big splurge was the cake. We had it made from the same cake shop that made Finley's. Story chose the design of the cake and the flavors - chocolate cake with cotton candy icing. It was definitely sweet!

I made a photo booth for the girls. They loved taking photos and using the props. We also had a shoe design contest, bracelet making activity, and glitter tattoos.

As the kids get older, it's harder and harder to take photos while I'm in the moment. I wish I had more to show you! But, all of the kids had a fun time! And Story was really excited :)

Gender Reveal Party : Baby Pike #3!

We decided to have a small get-together to celebrate the gender of our third (!!!) baby! We had an ultrasound done and asked the technician to not tell us and place the results into a sealed envelope. The plan was to then pick out a boy outfit and a girl outfit. We'd have a sales associate read the results and wrap up the appropriate outfit for us! None of that really went as planned. Jordan peeked, of course. He totally blamed it on Finley. We still went through with our plan and surprised our family the next day!

I didn't really take a whole lot of photos. Kind of wish I had! I kept the decorations really simple. Just streamers and a make-shift sign on the door. I went with "Blue or Pink? What Do You Think?" as the theme.

For lunch I made sausage gravy and biscuits. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We don't have all the family over very often. I wish we did though. They're a lot of fun :) For dessert I made chocolate cupcakes with colored frosting.

Yes! Baby Pike #3 is a BOY!!! We couldn't be more excited!!! It's going to be quite the adjustment.

Finley's First Birthday Party

Finley's First Birthday party was loosely themed, "Enchanted Woodland". I wanted to bring in natural objects along with a soft pastel palette. I shopped around the house for a lot of the decorations and the rest are all found at local craft stores.

 Beverages included water with mint and lime ice, pink lemonade, and lime punch. There was also coffee for dessert.

 The food was kept simple with healthy finger foods.

 Forest berries, Arugula salad with a rasberry dressing and feta cheese, chopped beef cheese ball

 Roll-Ups made from this recipe, deviled eggs, caprese skewers and veggie cups

 I went a little crazy with the desserts! But I couldn't help it. I found so many cute ideas.

 We hired a local baker to make the cake. It turned out great!

 Finley's smash cake!

Story's Fifth Birthday Party! {Rainbow Party}

As you know, my little lady turned five! She has been on a bit of a rainbow kick lately, and that didn't stop when it came time to pick the theme for her birthday party. Like in years past (1,2,3,4) we let her choose. Not going to lie, I was pretty excited when she mentioned Rainbow. I had seen a lot of neat ideas floating around Pinterest and thought I could make it really interesting. We had the party at Jordan's grandma's house, like last year and on her second birthday. Having used this location before, I knew better than to have it outside. It was a relatively small party, with only five other kids. Which was great, because it let me make the games and party favors just a little bit bigger.

 One of my favorite things was the cloud and rainbow for the dessert table. It was a lot of fun to make. I didn't do a tutorial, but it's pretty simple. I used a lamp shade, one that I found at Goodwill, an old white sheet and some tulle. I started by gluing and taping the sheet in to place. I used Tacky Glue that I found at JoAnn's and packing tape we still had from the move. It took a few days to get it to set and then a few more days for tweaking.

Paper chains. So simple and easy. They added another layer to the decorations. Another fun thing, was making the tissue paper pom poms. No tutorial for these either, but there are a ton of great ones out there.

The food was amazing. We had rainbow fruits and veggies, colored goldfish crackers, meat and cheese platter, and rainbow bread with peanut butter and jelly.

My wonderful father in law made the rainbow bread for the party. I wasn't able to eat it, but everyone said it tasted great. Story was so excited about almost everything being rainbow!

The dessert table was a lot of fun to put together. There was so much candy. We had those kids on a sugar rush, and then sent them home, with more candy ;) The jello-shots were another fun addition. I used six different types of jello. They were layered and them topped with Cool-Whip. They were a huge hit, mostly with the grown-ups.

The cake, now that was an experience. I've never properly iced a cake before. Most of the time I just left them in the pan... Ha, terrible I know. But this year I was determined to do it right. I enlisted the help of Jordan's grandma, who is an expert cake icer. It was so much for working alongside her, getting things ready for the party.

For the drinks we had four different kinds of kool-aid. We kept the plates, cups and utensils simple. The food and drinks were the start of the show.

Each kid received a party favor, after they ate. It was filled with bubbles, silly string, a punch balloons, a lei, glow in the dark bracelet, water gun, and lantern. The boxes were a score at Target.

The birthday girl and a few of her friends. Story's dress was an Etsy find. One that didn't last long. She spilled her drink down it almost instantly and ended up in a random shirt we had. Poor planning on my part.

The dress came with a matching dress to go with her American Girl Doll. She doesn't have one of those, but it did fit perfectly on her Build-A-Bear, Rose.

I don't have a photo of it, but after the kids ate and played with their goody bags we had a golden egg hunt for them.

After that I set up an art table for them to color on. They had markers and glitter glue. They ended up just smearing the glue all over the place and it sort of turned into a sticky mess.

Then it was time for cake. Story was a little disappointed at first when she saw it was just a white cake. She thought for sure it would be a colorful cake. Little did she know...

!!!! YES!!!! I attempted the rainbow cake! And it turned out beautifully! I used a white cake mix and added food coloring to six different bowls. They were then put into round cake pans. (now you know why I needed so much help with the icing :) ) I wasn't able to eat this either, but everyone said it was delicious.

Then it was time for the pinata. Or pianta, as Story likes to call it. It was so cute listening to the kids try and pronounce it. We had to rush the pinata a bit because it started to rain.

We finished the party with more candy and presents. I think it was a hit. Katelyn told Story it was the best birthday party she had ever been to. Kid approved :)

I had so much fun putting this party together. But boy, did it take forever! I'm glad it's done :) The timing was the hardest. We had to cram two really big events into the same weekend. Next year I'm going to space it out better. I plan on using some of the decorations in Story's room. So that will be fun.

**photos c/o Nancy Pike**

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