Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Pooh Birthday Party!

We have entered the wonderful world of two's with Hannah last month.  She is becoming so independent, and her vocabulary and speaking have shot off in the past month.  It's fun and challenging and exciting watching her grow.  I think I'll do a little post about Hannah at two later this week, but this post it ALL about my girl's Winnie the Pooh party.

This child LOVES Pooh.  Her daddy and I loved pooh growing up too.  I think Hannah got into Pooh after my parents brought over a box of all the Disney Pooh stuffed animal characters that I had collected growing up.  So it was easy to decide that this year's theme was Pooh.


Weston's awesome and generous parents gave me a Cricut as a birthday gift for me last year.  For those of you not familiar with Cricut, it is a die-cutting machine that allowed me to make these Pooh character's in the centerpiece and some other decorations for her party.  For the centerpiece, I just bought some inexpensive plants at Home Depot and stuck the characters in the plant with dowel rods.  Then I took scrapbooking paper to make the containers look pretty.  She adored these little characters cut-outs and would climb up to check them out.  Just today I took these little characters and made a scrapbook that she can look at and remember her birthday party.  I want to add a few of these pictures to her scrapbook too!


My dad and I made the sign out front.  We used a cheap and distressed piece of wood from Home Depot, and he cut it where I asked.  I took the pieces home and used my nail gun (any excuse to use that tool), and it was together in nothing flat.


I made the banners with the cricut machine again.  The banner over the fireplace was made with a honeypot shape, and the stuffed animals on the mantle were from my childhood.  Easy decorating when you have lots of Pooh toys!

 

Honey pot flowers for the centerpiece of our kitchen table.


One of my favorite things about Winnie the Pooh is that it is always packed full of good quotes about life that all ages can appreciate.




The weather was a lot warmer for Hannah's birthday this year.  We mostly all stayed inside to eat, but I decorated our back deck as well.  I made the little bees out of pom poms and pipe cleaners and glued them on yellow chinese lanterns to look like bees' nests.


The party favors were fun and really easy to put together.  I got cheap plastic round flower pots that looked the most like a honey pot and painted the pots with acrylic craft paint I had at home.


The goodies inside were some Pooh stickers and bubbles.  I found a couple Winnie the Pooh card games from the dollar store.  Lastly we made baggies of yellow gummy bears.

For the food, it was really fun and simple to theme it to Winnie the Pooh.


We had Kanga's Pouch Sandwiches which was just pita pouches stuffed with the most delicious chicken salad that Weston prepared.


The pretzels were "Pooh sticks" which is a game that Pooh and his friends play by dropping sticks into the stream and seeing whose stick makes it to the other side of the bridge first.


We had Rabbit's garden veggies.

 
And one of Hannah's favorites, Tigger Tails.


One of our sweets was Piglet's Haycorns.  Piglet loves acorns in the book and calls them "haycorns".

I ended up making the cups with my cricut as well.  Pooh themed paper cups were almost just as expensive as ordering these plastic stadium cups off Amazon.  So I used some permanent vinyl and cutout Pooh images and put favorite quotes on the back of each cup.


I made the cupcakes with some homemade buttercream frosting to hopefully resemble a nest, and then I stuck little sugared bees that I ordered off Amazon.


After lunch, we all gathered around to sing Happy Birthday.  She did great with everyone's eyes on her and singing to her.  I really wasn't sure with how shy she is, but this girl must have known it was her day.


And then Hannah blew out her candle as soon as we finished singing without us even telling her to blow.  She must have paid attention celebrating other family member's birthdays.  It's so much fun seeing how much she's learning and soaking up around her.


After cake, we opened all the wonderful gifts from our sweet family and friends.


This little Elmo bubble blower was a gift from her sweet little friend, Avery.  Isn't she a doll?!  Thank You, Avery!

 Loving on her cousin Caroline while they check out her new lego blocks.


One of the gifts from Grandma and Granddad was a Winnie the Pooh dress lovingly sewn by Grandma.

 

 Grandma and Granddad also got her a Winnie the Pooh suitcase!  Both girls loved it.  And Hannah has loved traveling with it and pulling her own suitcase.


Nonna and Pops got Hannah her very own basketball goal as a suggestion from Weston.  Hannah LOVES playing with him on it, but I think daddy has even more fun with it.


And the awesome thing about a BIG wrapped present is all the wrapping paper!


 Mommy and Daddy got Hannah a BMW power wheel with the option to be remote controlled driven by someone.  This present was all Weston's idea, and I hope he knows what he's setting himself up for when she turns 16.  


I will concede that it really is such a cool toy, and it has working lights and music and all the whistles.





Thank you to all our family and friends that made this birthday so special.  It made my day to have you all there to celebrate with our little girl.  A special thank you to my Aunt Julie, who is a flight attendant, that was able to coordinate and persist through flight delays and reassignments to get on the flight to Nashville for her layover.  :)


What a wonderful day.  We love you, Hannah Hart!

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Happy Easter!

It certainly has been a Happy Easter here!  This has been our first Easter to celebrate back home in a few years.  It was great to be back, but Weston had to work a couple 24 hour shifts this weekend which meant we greatly missed him on Sunday.  The Easter bunny came to visit on Saturday morning so that Daddy wouldn't miss her egg hunt and basket opening.  I didn't grab any pictures from this because I was recording a video, but she squealed with delight with her basket.  She loved everything the bunny left her and has become a little bit of a Jellybean addict this year.

I miraculously got us ready ahead of schedule for Easter morning mass which meant I was able to take a few pictures.  I pushed the chair into better lighting and told Hannah I was going to go grab my camera in the kitchen to take her pictures.  When I came back, she already got herself up in the chair and was sitting there waiting for me.  When did she get so big?!





We took pictures with the girls after mass in front of the alter.  These girls are precious to one another.




Then we headed back to my parents house for a ham dinner.  My mom sure sets the bar high when it comes to hosting, and everything was beautiful and delicious.



We had our traditional coconut bunny cake.


The girls got a cute matching outfit, a book, and a pinwheel from Grandma and Granddad.


Fun was had.


I love how these girls are not even two years old yet their bond and love is so strong.






I love Caroline's expression in these next two of the series.



We had an Easter egg hunt out front.  Caroline was quite the hunter of eggs.  Hannah was more interested in getting what was inside of the eggs.  By the end of the hunt, Hannah only had three eggs in her basket but five treats.  HA!




Egg hunts are serious business.





Praises to my living Savior and His pain and suffering He endured for our sin.  His blessings endure forever.  Happy Easter!