Pooka and Little Man's Undersea Birthday Party

Pooka and Little Man's birthdays are a mere 32 days apart. That makes it nearly impossible to have separate birthday parties at this age. I cannot ask all of our friends and family to give up a Saturday afternoon for a toddler birthday party, then do it all over again just one month later. So instead we waited until Pooka's birthday, when the weather would be warmer and the spring flowers in bloom, and went for a unisex theme. Since Pooka is obsessed with the aquarium (and Little Man is too young to object) we decided to go with a under-sea theme.

First up was picking the right invitations. We saw lots of fun undersea and ocean themes, like this All Arms invitation from Minted, or the Undersea Adventure invitation from Tiny Prints, but settled on the Whale Spout invitations from Paper Culture. We love Paper Culture because they plant a tree with every order, and only use recycled paper and envelopes. They also do a free addressing and mailing service, and the card stock if heavier than tiny prints.

Next, we choose the color palette: navy blue, turquoise, and coral. Again, since Little Man wasn't going to be able to voice his opinion (while my 3 year old has very clear and definite opinions) the colors leaned a little to the feminine side without being overtly girly. I ordered tulle and ribbons from Paper Mart and made a whole mess of DIY tulle pom-poms to hang around the house. Then, I pulled out some of the chinese paper lanterns I had bought from Pearl River to decorate Pooka's party last year (a circus theme) and covered them with tulle. Along the cross bar on the bottom of the lantern I hung more tulle, sequin trim, and raffia ribbon, and voila...a jelly fish! I also covered our large, round pendant lamp over the dining room table with tulle and hung the same tulle, sequin trim, and raffia to create tentacles and transform our light into a giant jellyfish that puddled onto the table. I covered the table in a turquoise tablecloth and spread extra pom-poms, seashells, and flowers amongst the food and birthday cake. I got a few bunches of balloons (my kids are OBSESSED with them) in the same color palette to put around the house. Finally, I covered the mantle with more turquoise tulle and placed coral, starfish, and shells down the length of it.

For cake, I used the Yellow Cake recipe with Pink Buttercream Frosting from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Breads cookbook. We are generally hard core Magnolia Bakery fans, but this may be our new favorite. It's not quite as sweet, and with a touch of poured fondant in the frosting the cake seems to hold up a bit better. I colored the frosting blue and turquoise to look sea-like. A late night cake accident led to some quick thinking and a cuter than expected result. While assembling the cake the night before the party a crack occurred in the top layer, and I was forced to lop off a piece of cake. What remained was something that reminded me of the sand dunes and bluffs at the beach, so I went with it. I used the turquoise piping to make waves and some brown sugar to make sand. I added some cute sand castle and starfish scrapbook stickers and turned a potential disaster into the most talked about item of the day! I also made a small cake banner using fabric scrapes cut with pinking shears, stitched together and hung from two bamboo skewers. A simple but lovely and unexpected decoration.

Favors are this huge question mark for me. How much should you spend? How do you choose favors for a mixed-age group of children? Are they even necessary??? This year we decided to do a combination favor/activity/craft. I purchased wooden bead kits from Melissa & Doug and used the alphabet letters to spell out each child's name. Then I added several additional beads and placed the string and all the beads in bags. I actually used brown paper sandwich bags since I already had them on hand. Once the beads and string were inside I folded the bag in half, wrote the child's name on the front, punched a hole along the fold, and tied a ribbon through the hole to secure the bags closed. I made sure to warn the parents of younger kids that there were small pieces inside! The necklaces were a hit and for the older kids they were a fun craft too.

We had a wonderful day, and we hope our party ideas can help inspire your next birthday party for the little ones. Look for some future posts about what Pooka and Little Man wore, the gifts they recieved, and the yummy toddler and adult friendly finger foods that were big hits at the party.

Favorite Easter Books

This will be Pooka's third Easter. As such, we have several Easter books that we bust out around this time of year. Starting with our youngest book, we read Karen Katz's Where are Baby's Easter Eggs?. You would think these books would get old (since she also has similar books about jackolanterns, Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, etc.) and yet somehow they still seem to delight her. As an infant it was the excitement of lifting the flaps. Now she likes to "read along" and tell me what is behind each flap before we lift it, which probably means the Little Man will never know the joy of discovery for himself since she will always be blurting out what's behind the flap before he opens it!

Last year we added Jan Brett's The Easter Egg. This sweet book is about a bunny who wants to make the most fantastic egg so he will be chosen to help the Easter Bunny deliver his eggs on Easter morning. We love Jan Brett, having both The Mitten and The Hat, so this book did not fail to disappoint. In fact I think it is my favorite of the books of hers that we own. We also bought a beautifully illustrated book called Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes. I have considered cutting out the illustrations and framing them for Pooka's walls more than once. It is a sweet story about a rabbit using it's imagination, which Henkes then brings to life in his illustrations.

This year we are considering three new books to add to the repertoire. The first is a classic by Dubose Heyward called The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. Despite being written in 1940 the tale of the country bunny working hard and persevering to be chosen as the Easter Bunny is an enduring story that should be shared with all little ones.

On a lighter note, Pooka adores all her Olivier Dunrea books (which have all been thoughtful birthday gifts over the last few years). Any of his board books would suffice for Easter because they are based on goslings (which scream springtime to me), but we don't yet have Ollie's Easter Eggs. These books are great for the younger set and are still read regularly as bedtime books at age three. Pooka even wears "bright red boots" like Gertie, and shouts out "follow me" to the Little Man so I guess Gossie (Olivier Dunrea's main character) has really captivated her.

Finally, I'm a sucker for any book with a big ole' Caldecott Medal stuck to the front and Marshmallow by Clare Turlay Newberry is no exception. It's a story of a rabbit that moves into a house with a not so excited cat and how they become friends. This seems like the perfect topic for any preschooler, especially one that may have a new sibling in their life! And the illustrations are simple and lovely!