Two Fine Fishermen

Pops took Walker, Kathryn and me fishing this past Saturday for the Dauphin Island Young Anglers tournament.

We thought the double rainbow we saw 30 minutes into our boat ride sealed the deal for a productive day of fishing. But with rain showers that came and went, we couldn't get the fish biting. Ultimately, the kiddos snagged two small fish (a croaker and a pinfish) of Dad's pier.

It was a hoot weighing the little guys in but it did allow the kiddos to get their free hotdog, coke and ice cream sandwich.

Here are some pics in no particular order...

Pancakes Make People Happy

That's why we chose a Pancakes and Pajamas theme for Frances' 2nd birthday!

 

Here are the invitations...

 

I searched the internet over and never found any "pancake" invites that I just loved, so I decided to craft some myself!  The card stock and envelopes came from Paper Source and the fun wooden forks and Divine Twine came from Fancy Flours. 

The pink and yellow color combo came about from my initial idea to have a lemonade stand party.  When plans changed to accommodate breakfast, I decided the same colors would work--pink for the birthday princess along with some sunny yellow for a morning fete!

The plates, napkins and clear envelopes (filled with crayons for some coloring) were purchased at Shop Sweet Lulu. The fruit loops were on hand to make necklaces as a pre-breakfast activity.

I also threw in a little "piggy" theme too a la If You Give A Pig A Pancake!

I went a bit Fruit Loop crazy, filling the vases with them too!

 

Menu items included fruit salad, breakfast casserole, grits casserole, pineapple cheese casserole and, of course, pancakes complete with homemade whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and pecans! There was also pink party punch (sprite, frozen pink lemonade and raspberry sorbet) along with orange juice and coffee. Yum!

 

 

 (My fried egg "fascinator" came from Bug Bites Play Food via Etsy.  The birthday girl would not wear the pancake one I made her (by simply hot gluing a hairclip to the felt food), but her cousins and sister all joined in!)

For the cake, a simple caramel cake from the local bakery got fancied up with some melted chocolate (aka syrup) and some banana laffy taffy (aka butter)!  I had them make a six layer cake, so that when we cut into it, it sort of resembled....you guessed it--PANCAKES!

And some fun pink and yellow cupcakes for the birthday girl!

A few party pics....

 

For the goody bags, we filled white gift bags with muffins, coffee, and a mug for the adults and breakfast snacks for the kiddos! Perhaps my favorite find during all of my party planning was the ADORABLE stationery shop, Gaddie and Tood.  If I had found the site sooner, I would have had matching invitations, but our homemade ones had already gone out, so we got these cute bag tags instead!

 

Happy Birthday, sweet Frances!

Phone Fun

What did we do before smart phones???

Two

Miss Frances also had a birthday this past weekend. Two years old! Wow!

Just a few thoughts to capture this precious little girl...

*She has loved Minnie Mouse since December and still has quite the affinity for her but princesses are running a close second, namely Ariel!
*She loves to pretend to talk on the phone.
*She's already a great little singer. She likes Wheels on the Bus and Row Row Row Your Boat along with several worship songs.
*She talks up a storm (much more than her brother and sister at this age).
*She loves her Sissy and Bubba (as she calls them). She will also refer to WalKer as WalTer. We always get a kick out of this.
*She's fun loving--loves to play dress up and loves to be tickled:)
*Her biggest love right now is swimming. She goes around the house collecting everyone's swimsuit when she know it's pool time. She tells everyone "babysuit on" and you best get moving. No cover ups either; she wants to know you've got your suit on!
*Dougie the black lab is still her favorite lovey.
*She loves to drink milk and likes to eat cheese and anything else her brother and sister are eating. She will not eat peanut butter however but loves most any kind of meat.
*She loves her mommy but at the same time she is very much a daddy's girl.
*She refuses to sit in the buggy anywhere! Unless she is in a folding chair:)

Pool Party Fun

We celebrated the twins' birthday poolside this year.  There's just not much you can do in the hot summer sun that doesn't involve a little bit of water!

I hope to have some actual pictures to show soon, but until then, I thought I would share how we carried out the pool party theme. (Check out my Birthday Parties Pinterest board to see other fun ideas that just didn't make the cut!).

First step...cute invitations! Kathryn helped me pick out these fun invites from My Expression.

Second on the list...a cute cake or (in this case) cupcakes!

octopus cupcakes

Throw in a few fun theme-inspired ideas...Like serving fruit in a carved "sandbucket" watermelon

watermelon sandbucket

and serving snacks (cheese curls and goldfish for us) in sand buckets

Summer Mix served in sandbucket

and you've got yourself a party!!!!