Showing posts with label Partytime. Show all posts

August 31, 2017

Throwback Thursday: Bean's Redneck 30th Birthday

Written by Allison on 8:00 AM in Birthdays, Partytime with No comments

Bean the Dream is 35 years old today.

Let's let that sink in for a little bit.

It's been almost 10 years since we got married, and the way I know that is he was 25 when we tied the knot. I found some old photos and I wanted to share some of the awesome parties we've had in the past. This is the biggest birthday party we ever had for the guy who doesn't like celebrating birthdays.

Soon after we found out we were expecting Abby, the artist who sang our First Dance song at our wedding, Stoney LaRue was selling a new line of wine and had an appearance at a grocery store right up the road from our house. We got there early, expecting a hute line, but it was short and we told him that we were expecting but hadn't told our families yet.

He signed a bandana especially for 'Buck' and we got this photo.

It's cute, but let's get on with the party details. I apologize in advace for the terrible quality; this was one of the signs that my old camera was on its way out. They are all blurry!

We had an armadillo cake in red velvet, just like in Steel Magnolias. I don't remember what it tasted like but it's pretty gross looking!

And of course a beer cake with cute ribbons!

Amazing food- chips, vienna sausages, cheese balls... what else could you ask for at a white trash party?!

We used ugly fake flowers with the price tags still on in beer bottles; and candles in vienna sausage containers for decor. Those are candy cigarettes as party favors.

I loved our outfits. I had an awesome thigh tattoo, tons of eye make up, and a fake belly hiding the real baby inside there!

Luckily our washing machine had gone out so we set it out on the patio and put drinks in it. Can't get more authentic than that!

I don't remember where this beer can wreath came from (did we make it? did someone else make it and give it as a gift?), but it's amazing. Our friends and family really got into the theme!

Spam sandwiches. I couldn't even try it. Spam and pregnant ladies who have never eaten spam before do NOT mix!

The big plan for the day, other than just drinking and hanging out in funny outfits was to announce our pregnancy to all of our friends and family at the same time, in a picture. So we got everyone outside the house, got one of the parents (they already knew) to take a some photos and when we called out, "One, Two, Three!", the second or third time around I yelled out, "We're Pregnant!"

There's a great reaction shot somewhere out in the universe but I don't have a copy of it here. It was a great surprise!

Happy Birthday to the greatest Bean, husband, and Dad who looks really hot with a handlebar moustache.

Abigial's Princess Ballerina Birthday

Written by Allison on 8:00 AM in Abigail, Birthdays, Partytime with No comments

This year Abigail had much more input into the planning of her party which was nice. My goal again was to keep it simple and fun and to stick to our rule about number of guests and mostly homemade. I hardly took any pictures, but at least I captured the most important moments.

When her 4 friends each arrived, we had some ballerina tutus and crowns set out that they could put on if they wanted. Then they basically all went outside and sat at the Play Doh table most of the time. They were all having fun, enjoying all the colors and tools, and didn't want to do anything else.

The friends she invited this year were Addie, Kristin (not pictured), Savannah, and Makinley. All girls from her class, although Makinley is a year older and wasn't in her class at the time, but we had seen her recently.

One of her friend's big sister is a Cougerette and offered to teach a little dance routine to the girls but they just wanted to freestyle to whatever song was on.

As soon as the music was off, they all went back out to play with the play doh.

This is the best and only picture of the snacks- again, all easy stuff. I loved that cake, it was so easy and fun just sticking things onto it. We always get two or three types of icecream from our local icecream place, Henry's for the party. I love that touch- we love Henry's and shopping local.

Family photo! She insisted on putting her Elsa dress back on. This is a dress we hid for about a month until she kept asking for it and we pulled it back out again. I never thought I would get annoyed at seeing an outfit on my kid- it's a really pretty dress! But when it's the same thing every other day....."I love you"- speaking of my helper, she asked that I type that right there.

After her friends left, we had present time with the grandparents!

There is a feeling of pressure around parties these days that I'm digging in my heels against. I love planning parties and coming up with all of the details, but I don't want it to feel stressful or not worth it.

We've been to parties that felt so overwhelming with the activities, and going from one thing to the next every 15 minutes, or the ones at that damn Chuck E Cheese. I need a nap just thinking about it! I understand the urge to have the 'best' of everything, and thinking that kids just want all the flashy stuff, and why not, because it's a party... I felt like this party might have been a little too plain when I compared it to other's.

However, I don't want to spend a ton of money on a party when the biggest lesson I learned from this party was that kids are happy just playing with Play Doh and dancing!

Simple won for the second year in a row!

Abigail's Jungle Birthday

Written by Allison on 8:00 AM in Abigail, Birthdays, Holidays, Partytime with No comments

For Abigial's 2nd Birthday Party, we wanted to start a new precedent. The First Birthday Party was so intense, and I knew I didn't want to continue hosting extremely large parties every year and make my kid think that was normal.

We set one big rule: only Abby's friends, and only the number of kids (+1) for that year's age.

No extended family, none of our friends' kids, with a goal of mostly homemade. I remember my birthday parties were usually low key, with just my cousins and a homemade cake. That's the feeling we are after.

She was pretty into animals around this time, and we had these sticker pages where you make faces on animals. She made them all herself and they were simultaneously creepy and hilarious, so we decided to make them the first thing when you walked in the door!

The one thing Abby insisted on was that you must have hats for a party, so we had a few different kinds of jungle hats for guests to wear.

We put out a jungle lego set in the living room for everyone to play with, and the kitchen was set up for everyone to play with, as well as extra sticker pages to make more creepy animal faces.

It's not a party without balloons, so we had those too.

I love this homemade cake. It was so easy and simple!

Chips and sandwiches, easiest party food ever.

I'm glad we started the tradition of taking a family photo with the cake, it's a perfect goal each year. She LOVED the hats.

I forgot to mention it was a zebra cake. Just alternating spoonfuls of chocolate and vanilla cake and it bakes up like this. Not any more difficult than a regular cake. We did 3 tiers because it's more fun than 2.

The friends we saw most often that year were Neil (of course) and Pearson and Green. She specifially requested Green but of course he brought his big sister!

The rule of 2 kids for 2 years, plus one to grow on worked out great. The friend to grow on were some kids we met at the library but have since lost touch with. The mom's name was Alison and she and her husband were from England.

This is awkward, but I think I was trying to capture the essence of how simple it was.

What can we say, she has very generous grandparents. Even with the extremely limited guest list, she had more than she ever needed by way of gifts! Our big gift was a wagon for walks to the park. And now I will go weep over how cute she and Neil were together and how much I miss them.

An amazing thing I did that year that I wish I had done the first year and remembered about the third year was take photos of Abby with each set of grandparents! Now that I have this in mind, I'll be able to start it up again because these are some of my favorite photos from the whole day.