How to spend a perfect day off Work

So typically when I get a day off or take a day off, it's filled with a to do list a mile long (oh the life of a working Mom).  But sometimes I like to take the day off just to be a mom.  Sometimes we have a few friends to play but this was a special day.  It was actually Lily's Birthday.

We started our day with our favorite sinful breakfast treat.  Donuts!  She had been asking for donuts for weeks.  So I promised to take her there for her birthday.

YUM!  That's all I can say!

Can you tell this is one of our favorite treats.  Hope she doesn't like them quite as much as me. :)

After breakfast we packed a lunch and headed to the park for the whole morning.

We invited all our friends who get to stay home with their Mommies.  It was super fun.  We stayed at the park for almost 3 hours.  How could we have a more perfect morning.  I don't think we could.

We had to take a short break in the afternoon to take a nap.

But after our nap we headed out to the mall.  We went to Lily's Favorite stores, American Girl Doll (she really wants one of these, but I haven't decided she is big enough yet.  Maybe soon), Shoe Store (She is all girl and her favorite accessories are shoes), Gymboree (okay this is my favorite store for her), and last but not least the Build a Bear store.

She had just finished two weeks of chores to earn a Princes Twilight Sparkle.

(after our nap we had to change, she is such a girl)

(see the new shoes)

This Twilight is one of the best things she got for her birthday.  She plays with it everyday!

For Dinner we meet up with Daddy at Lily's favorite restaurant (On the Boarder).  She loves chips and salsa.  She took it upon herself to let the waitress know it was her birthday.  She told her she wanted a big ice cream with two cherries.  :)  So of course the whole staff came and sang to her and brought her the biggest brownie and ice cream.

Finally we got to open presents at home.  She was so excited.

The best end of the best day.  Big hugs from my baby for her Mommy.

Then it was off to bed with her favorite Ponies!

BEST DAY with my FAVORITE GIRL.  Can't believe she is four.

My New Favorite party cup for kids party

Little milk jars, you can decorate them differently for every party.  For Lily's Minnie Mouse Party I used my Circuit and my Mickey Mouse and Friends cartridge and cut a boarder of three Mickey heads.  Then I embellished with ribbon.  You just hot glue your decorations, when  you are done simply remove the hot glue (it should peel right off).  It looks really cute with colored Milk and a cool paper straw.

When I did this with my nephews they loved it.  They wanted to drink out of them all day.  They would put the lid on and put it in the fridge and go back to it all day.  So fun!

Lily's 4th Birthday Party

Birthday Parties are one of my favorite things to do.  I just love planning and thinking about how I can make Lily's birthday special.  Picking a theme this year was easy.  This year we went to Disney World.  It was the first time for both Lily and Marty.  We had the most wonderful time (I'll try to make a blog post about this soon).  So to stick with Disney, we went with a Minnie Mouse theme.

The invitation sets the theme and is the first thing your guest see for your party.  I knew I wanted to make a Minnie Mouse invitation for the girls and Mickey Mouse invitations for the boys.  I hadn't purchased the Mickey and Friends Circuit cartridge yet so I had to hand cut Minnie.

I had Marty create the wording for the invitation in photo shop using the Disney font.  After the invitation went out I noticed we forgot to put the time on it.  So I sent an email with the time. (totally bummed we missed the time)  But I think the invitation turned out super cute and totally in line with the theme. :)

I decided on this theme several months ago. So I was able to shop and looks for good deals.  I purchased Minnie and Mickey Mouse Tumbler cups at the Disney Store at the twice upon a year sale.  I got a great deal $3.  I love good deals.  Because you have to put your name on everything when you go to a daycare, I thought it would be fun to personalize their cups.  I used vinyl lettering  and my circuit to cut out each of their names.

I was also able to find some super cute Minnie Mouse gift bags.  In each bag I included a Minnie Mouse (or Mickey Mouse for boys) tumbler cup, a package of just pink crayons (I found these at Walmart with the back to school supplies) a Minnie Mouse necklace, a Minnie Mouse ring pop and candy bracelet and a Mickey Mouse fruit snack. 

And of course I had to personalize everyone's bag. 

I love Pinterest, I found tons of fun ideas for this party. http://pinterest.com/lucink/party-ideas/

I decided to purchase the Mickey and Friends Circuit cartridge (I just don't know what I would do without this machine).  I cut out Mickey gloves, Minnie purses, Minnie heads and bows and Minnie's signature. Here's my decorations :)

I set up this Picture Booth.  I had all kinds of skirts and purses and shoes for the girls to dress up in for picture taking.  I had Marty bring down the big professional camera and take pictures.  Unfortunately the girls were not interested in this at all.  Only Lily and one other little girl dressed up and took a couple of pictures.  Oh well.

I made these super cute Minnie ears for everyone to wear at our party.  Thanks Suburban Mom for the great tutorial. http://www.thesuburbanmom.com/2010/06/16/how-to-make-mickey-minnie-mouse-ears-for-a-party/

I made these ears using my Circuit and I put each child's name on them so we could use them for the games.

I love fresh flowers and I always buy them for parties.  I would buy them all the time but it's not really practical.  To stick with our Minnie Mouse theme I made a Minnie topiary, using three foam balls I spray painted black and a cute pink bow.

THE CAKE!  I love cake decorating.  I took Wilton classes while I was pregnant with Lily.  I just love cakes they are such a pretty way to decorate.  Thanks Anut Kay for giving me a love for doing this!

For This Cake I made a Minnie head again using three foam balls and black fondant.

Here's a close us so you can see the easy rosette piping.

For the Party we played a few games, had a photo booth and did some coloring.

 

This is kind of a silly game, but they loved it!  I gave each child a snow cone cup and then we tossed the balloons up in the air and the kids tried to catch them with their snow cone cups.

I made coloring books for each child.  Using pictures from the Disney Jr. website and then I bound them in card stock, and put a Minnie and Mickey head on the front of each one.

We have this fantastic cupcake matching game.  I modified the game and played it three times.  I gave each child a cupcake recipe card and flipped the timer and had them put together their cupcake as fast as they could.

I had my awesome photographer brother print this big poster of Lily so we could play Pin the ears on Lily.  This is where we used these cute ears.

 I purchased the mini bean bag sized Mickey, Minnie and friends from the Disney store.  We played two games.  Hot Potato and who can throw the farthest. 

And of course we did some dancing. :)

I think the party was a success.  She had a wonderful time and I think her friends did too.  And I loved planning it.