Celebrating a Half Birthday

We recently celebrated Natalie's half birthday by having some of her friends over for a party. With an  actual birthday that falls smack dab in the middle of December she's missed out on parties with friends because no one, including me, wants to add another thing to their December calendars. So we've always kept things small for her birthday celebrations - just the family and maybe a close friend to share in the excitement of blowing out the candles. This year we promised her a half birthday party and she has been literally counting down the days. 

After throwing around lots of ideas for what kind of party it would be, she finally decided on a rainbow theme. It was perfect for our sweet Natalie who spends much of her time with her head in the clouds with unicorns, butterflies, and rainbows and every day is the best day ever. I took the rainbow idea and ran with it, suddenly seeing rainbows everywhere I looked.

The first step to any birthday party is planning so I started looking online to see if I could spare myself any work by just copying someone else's party ideas. It was Pinterest to the rescue as I easily found more ideas that I could really process.  I spent an afternoon shopping for rainbow colored decorations and on the morning of the party I set Natalie's big sisters loose with all the supplies and gave them free rein to rainbowfy the house. As usual, my kids do things much better than I can and the end result was really fun and bright.

Rainbow streamers diving the living and dining rooms
Little bowls of skittles and taste the rainbow signs were scattered around
More rainbow streamers dress up the buffet where the displayed the goody bags and some more party treats
For some reason, the day before the party I decided that Natalie needed a rainbow dress to wear on the big day. Probably because I like to make things more complicated than they really need to be. Whatever the reason was, I sketched out my idea for the dress and started pulling rainbow fabric from my stash. The morning of the party I was furiously sewing and was once again grateful to the mystery person who gifted me my serger because it made the whole process so much faster!


As far as activities during the party were concerned, I wanted to keep things simple. Nice weather is one of the benefits of a party in June so I decided that it would be fun for everyone to just play outside. There's only so much running around the yard kids can do before getting bored so I stocked up on hula hoops, jump ropes, bubbles, and sidewalk chalk and set everyone loose outside to play. When they got too hot (stinking humidity!) they came inside and just played together. My basic party philosophy is that it should be like a playdate, but with cake!

Blowing bubbles with Anna
Playing four square
And just being silly with Hosanna
Eventually it was time to have lunch and we did our best to continue the rainbow theme to the food. We had tacos with cheese (orange/yellow), lettuce (green), and tomatoes (red) to go on top as well as a platter of rainbow colored fruits and veggies. And the world's easiest cake, doughnut cake with rainbow sprinkles.


Our favorite type of cake! I heard about Colossal Donuts from a friend at church  and they did not disappoint - huge, yummy, and rainbow sprinkled.  Each one was almost as big as Natalie's face!
It was a fun party and I couldn't have pulled it off with out the help of my sweet big kids. They were right there the whole time making invitations, finding party ideas, decorating, getting the food together, and even entertaining party guests. Natalie had such a great time at her half birthday party and we loved making it a special day for our special 8 1/2 year old!

Comments

  1. DebbyJuly 3, 2015 at 7:10 PM

    Love the dress! I admire your sewing talent. Looks like a fun birthday party.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sarah MoranJuly 4, 2015 at 5:07 AM

      Thanks! I have such fun sewing things for my girls.

      Delete

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