Art Party

Layla's 2nd birthday party was on Saturday. The theme this year was "arts and crafts." There is no character that Layla is obsessed with and she loves to draw, color, paint and stamp so an arts and crafts party it was!! Enjoy the pictures!

The invites! Layla really did all of the hard work, she happily painted and painted and

painted :-) The front of the invitation is on the left and the back is on the right of the collage. Look at how short Layla's hair was just about six weeks ago!

The sign and the cake, two of my favorite details of the day! Cassie made the sign and one of Cassie's co-workers made the cake. I would love to learn how to make fondant cakes. If you click on the picture and look at the cake there were little balls at the bottom on the layers, Layla loved these and kept asking for one and popping them in her mouth...silly girl!

Details, details....

The tables had drawing paper on them so everyone could color freely. If you call your local newspaper you might be able to score some! These sold for $1 for the end of the roll...Jamie (thank you!) picked up three rolls for me and I only used one. The extra paper will be great for rolling out on the ground and coloring/painting. We had our "guestbook tablecloth" again this year and I wanted to show you the crayon signs I used for the drinks (important to have signs when one drink has alcohol in it!!). These crayon signs came from the Crayola paint samples at Menards...perfect AND free!

Layla was so much fun to watch at the party. She really loved everything and ran around like a little nut. All of her favorite people were surrounding her and her sidekicks were constants by her side (cousins Kelsey and Shea). Here is the "make a colored noodle necklace" station...I don't think many necklaces were made but the kids had fun pouring noodles from bucket to bucket!

Painting...Layla could not wait to crack into the paints! The paint station got moved outside after the weather looked like it really was going to stay nice and our walls inside stayed paint free, yippee!! Do you see Shea's cute tie? Cassie got it special for the party from Etsy, so fun!

So the singing and cake didn't go exactly as planned :-) We had been practicing singing and blowing out a candle but Layla froze in front of the guests. She loved all of the guests separately but in one room at the same time it became a little overwhelming!

Layla went outside to enjoy a cupcake (the cake lady offered to make cupcakes to go with the cake and it worked out perfectly for Shea and Layla) and bounced right back!

I love this picture of daddy and daughter.

Layla's three baby friends, Zander (left), Ryker (top) and Mason (bottom), were at the party. Aren't they all adorable?

More guests! Layla's super aunts and of course Layla's great grandpa...Big Papa is what Layla and Shea call him. Layla really is so lucky to have so many family and friends be such an active part of her life.

Layla had such a fun day and it made Ryan and I so happy to see her bounding around the house and backyard. Present time turned a little more frenetic than last year. Layla really has the whole opening presents thing down now and she likes to do it at a very fast pace :-)

And of course, I love a favor! This year's favor was a crayon roll for the kiddos and chocolate crayons (purchased a crayon mold and made them) for the adults. The inside of the crayon roll has about 14 pockets to stick crayons in and then you just roll up the crayons, tie it with a ribbon and easily stick it into your diaper bag. I used the tutorial from the blog Skip to My Lou to make these crayon rolls.

It was a fun day and I am now left with the fact that my baby is 2. It is a little tough to wrap my head around but even tougher is the fact that after 2 comes 3...that just seems so old to me! Good thing I have a whole year to come around to the idea :-)

And yes it is crazy, but Layla has another birthday party next weekend. It will be another triple celebration with Layla's twin cousins and Ryan's side of the family. It will be much more low key than last year's carnival party and we are hoping it will be a relaxing afternoon with family.

Stay tuned for pictures...!!!