Tales of the Trees: Choo Choos and Tutus a Joint Birthday Party

3/16/15

Choo Choos and Tutus a Joint Birthday Party

For a couple of months prior to March I debated whether to have a joint birthday party for the kids.

Their birthdays are nine days apart so it logistically made sense, but now that Eli is four I didn't know if he would want to share his party. He has been talking about his birthday party since before Christmas and proclaiming how excited he was about it.

Then I also considered not doing a first party for Anniston but decided it probably wouldn't be fair since I did a one year party for Eli. So after asking Eli if he cared if Annie shared his birthday party I decided to plan one big joint bash!

Next came deciding on a theme. Every time I asked Eli what kind of party he wanted he would of course say "Polar Express". So I decided to do a train theme. It was hard trying to figure out how to incorporate Annie into that. I searched Pinterest and it wasn't much help but I saw a card for a "Trucks and tutus party". I liked it but it still didn't click on what to do for my kid's party. Then that night while texting with a friend and having a brainstorming text session she suggested "choo choos and tutus" and bam our theme was born. I thought it was perfect!

I decided to use our church for the venue because we have an amazing playground that the kids could play on, plus a big room for cake and presents and it was FREE.

So let's get to the party. All of the pictures are a collection of pics from my sister's phone, a few that Luke took on our camera and some that my neighbor took.

In the entryway I had the "sign in" table with this adorable birthday canvas I had made by Crafting and Cocktails. I decided not to make the birthday canvas the party colors because I want to use it every year. Plus I plan on taking the kid's picture with it every year on their birthday to watch them grow throughout the years.

I kept the favors simple and did suckers tied around a bottle of bubbles. All of the print designs (including the above invitation) came from One Good Name on Etsy She did an AMAZING job on everything. I just realized I didn't get a picture of the favors at the party but here is one from my office with my messy floor in the background:

I used big frames and displayed all my "Trees on Sundays" pics throughout the party (if you follow me on Instagram you know that I take pics of my kids every single Sunday and have done this since the first Sunday Annie went to church)

More Trees on Sundays pics...

As the kids arrived we had a bounce house for them to bounce and slide on.

I found a fun "pin the hat" game on Pinterest that I used at the party. I took pics of the kids and blew them up into "engineer prints" for $3.89 at Staples and then made party hats out of neon poster board. Kids took turns trying to pin the hat on the birthday kid (blindfolded of course).

I wanted something for the kids to do between the bounce house and going outside so I printed some free coloring pages from Pinterest and then Amy (One Good Name) designed the cover. I put markers and crayons in mason jars.

Cake time!! Eli's cake was of course Polar Express and Annie's smash cake was a sweet pink ruffled cake.

I love that the cake had a golden ticket with his name on it. Eli gasped when he saw it.

At first Annie didn't know what to think about her cake and took her time delicately sticking a finger in the icing and then licking it

But soon enough she realized how delicious it was and loved it. She might have thrown a little fit when I took it away from her to cut some pieces off.

All of the amazing banners were done by Looks Like a Party. Which definitely saves me a lot of time!

Then it was present time!

Then outside to play!

Both Eli and Anniston had such a good time. Of course Annie didn't understand it all completely but Eli was beside himself all day. All his friends in one room was like heaven to him.

It was such a wonderful day. It was actually my 31st birthday and I got lots of birthday wishes for myself as well. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my own birthday than celebrating my two precious babies. We had so many friends and family come out to love on our babies and celebrate their new age, what a blessing it was!