This is a little later than I had intended, but I must share the details from Alethea’s 5th birthday party. As requested by the birthday girl, we went with a Clifford the Big Red Dog theme. Some people who heard about the theme choice expressed surprise that Alethea was still interested in Clifford. While it’s true that all things Frozen have recently become her obsession, Alethea still has a soft spot for Clifford in her heart.

Using my selected color scheme of red, yellow, blue, and white, I practiced my Photoshop skills and was pleased with how her invitations turned out.

The cake table was covered with deliciousness including chocolate and lemon cupcakes, dipped pretzels, little cups of puppy chow, and the birthday girl’s request… a giant bone shaped cake.

My friend Jen made the bone cake and another friend, Erica, made the cupcakes. Pure homemade scrupmtiousness all the way around. And did you see that I snagged a red “5” candle at Party City? I couldn’t believe my good luck that the number I needed was in the perfect color!

Clifford and his stuffed friends all attended the party. The paper hats were another Alethea request. A little tricky to get them to stay on, but don’t they look festive?

Alethea joined her pals up on the mantel for a quick photo op just as the party was starting. (I found out that it’s hard to locate a red dress for a little girl in the spring, but was fortunate to track down Alethea’s party outfit on eBay a few weeks before the big event.) If you look closely at the pictures, you will notice that Alethea’s memory table this year featured photos from each of her past birthdays. Also, if you’ve got an eye for such things, you may notice one of the home improvement projects that has been keeping me busy this spring. I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with shmantel.  

The party menu consisted of, what else, hot dogs, with plenty of toppings and sides. I did silverware wraps to make it easy to create a custom hot dog and carry utensils at the same time. The favor bags contained a variety of Clifford items (stickers, pencil and party blower) as well as generic items that fit the color scheme (bubble tube and candy).  

After everyone had full tummies, we moved on to opening presents. Alethea seemed to enjoy all her gifts, but Aunt Leah scored major points by giving her the light up LED unicorn Pillow Pet that she’s been asking for since December. I think she’s a rather homely unicorn myself, but Alethea is over the moon about her, and has lovingly dubbed her “Glowy”. 

Once all the presents were opened, it was time for the cake. Alethea blew out all the candles and then decided that she wanted part of the paw print for her slice, which she ate along with a pretzel, some ice cream, and a cup of puppy chow. Sugar rush! 

And that’s how we celebrated Alethea’s Big Red 5th Birthday. It sure was a good one, although I can hardly believe I’m the mother of an almost kindergartener. Where does the time go?!?!

PS. To view more BobbleHeadBaby celebrations, visit my Parties Page!

So sorry to suddenly drop off the face of the blog planet.  The weather has FINALLY turned here in Minnesota and the girls and I have been spending every free minute outdoors.  That added to Peter’s birthday, Mother’s Day and the fact that our fence is being installed (yes, we are actually getting the long awaited fence) has added up to not much time for blogging.

But I’m back this evening, blogging from my front porch.  The birds are singing and the bugs haven’t started biting yet.  Oh how I adore spring!  Baby animals chattering, flowers and plants poking out, I’m in love with all the world.  Except for the rabbit that ate four years worth of growth off my Trillium.  That bunny can die a long, slow, painful death from all of the Lily of the Valley that he also greedily devoured.  But other than him, yes, I’m in love with all the world.

Anyhow, enough about the weather.  Back at the end of April, we had Alethea’s birthday party.  Lately she has been enjoying the Frances books by Russell Hoban, particularly A Birthday for Frances.  Thus her request for a “Frances party”.

For those of you who don’t know, Frances is a badger and the books were written in the 1960s and 70s, so not the sort of theme where you can just run into Party City and pick up a bunch of theme appropriate paper goods.  Instead, I used the color scheme from the book’s cover (pink and green), and taking as many cues from the book as possible, here’s what I came up with for invitations, decor and favors:

After last year’s bumblebee extravaganza, which was super fun, but also a bit crazy, I decided to go for a much smaller, mostly family guest list and I e-mailed out the invites instead of getting them printed up.

Peter gave me Photoshop Elements for Christmas two years ago and I think I’m just finally getting the hang of it.  I have to admit that I was almost giddy with pride when I managed to change the name on the cake from “Gloria” to “Alethea”.  Photoshop rookie for the win!

With the guests invited, I moved on to the decor.  I knew I wanted something special on the mantle, but didn’t want to totally revamp my spring decor, so I changed out my Easter chalkboard for a birthday themed one…

Also on the mantle was a balloon bouquet.  Alethea specifically requested a “Frances balloon” and I know she was thinking of a mylar balloon with a Frances badger on it, but since the only badger balloons I could find featured the slightly scary Wisconsin badger, I decided to go with the next closest thing, which was a plush badger holding balloons…

Alethea was very excited that Frances actually came to her party and was even wearing a custom made party dress thanks to Gramma Denny.  Frances appeared the morning of the party, but I told Alethea she had to leave Frances up on the mantle until she opened her presents.  So instead of playing with Frances, she stood looking up at her and said things like, “I’m so glad you’re here, Frances.  You have balloons!  Two green and one pink!  We have more balloons over here, but these are MY balloons.  Those three are yours.”  I always have to laugh when I listen in on Alethea’s conversations with her stuffed friends.  Those plush animals are so very real to her right now.

This year’s memory table (aka the console table behind the couch) held the usual assortment of pictures from the previous year, as well as another chalkboard and two Frances book covers that I printed out for the occasion.

The food and beverage stations featured more Frances book covers.  The menu for the evening was spaghetti and meatballs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  If that menu sounds a bit odd, it might be because you’ve never read Bread and Jam for Frances, in which case, let me recommend that you do so, because it is one of the best children’s books of all time.

I took the favor ideas straight out of the book, which were party poppers and little baskets of gumdrops and chocolate covered raisins.  (Actually in the book they are chocolate covered peanuts, but choking hazards and kids birthdays aren’t a great mix.)  I DIYed the baskets using these instructions.  And my neighbor and I put together the party poppers with these supplies…

I found a place online to buy the cracker strips.  They weren’t as loud as I thought they’d be, more of a ‘pop’ than a ‘bang’, but maybe that was a good thing.  In the end I think we used too much tape to hold everything together, so they were a little hard to pull apart.  The kids didn’t seem to care though, they were mostly interested in the goodies inside.

Another of Alethea’s requests was a cake “just like the one in the book”.  I knew I’d never survive all that piping, so I had my friend make the cake and she did an absolutely amazing job.  It was beautiful and also gynormous since she used two 12 inch rounds!

Alethea was quite pleased with the end result!

And here is what the cake table looked like once I got everything put together.  (Plates and napkins from Target, doilies and oversized pink candles from Party City, big fringe streamers DIYed using instructions here.)

Whew!  There you go, my best attempt at a Frances the Badger birthday theme.  And now, since this post is already way too long and it’s getting late, I’ll have to get the actual party pics up later, but never fear, they are coming.

Thanks for stopping by to share in the fun!

To view more BobbleHeadBaby celebrations, visit my Parties Page!

It’s paper goods for a Bumble Bee Birthday Party!

Guess who was so excited about it all that she actually asked to have her picture taken with the box….

It’s Alethea, the birthday girl to bee, of course!