Ballerina Birthday Party

I love to throw parties. Starting at the kids' first birthday I planned big parties. Yes, I know, that at one they are not going to remember their party. I freely admit that the big parties are as much for me (if not more) than for them. I love the whole planning thing. Themes are great! Ben's first bday was ducky themes and we had little rubber duckies everywhere..even in the little kiddie pool outside. And I admit to getting a little too emotionally invested in the whole thing. How else can I explain the torrent of tears when the cake I ordered from the grocery store did not look anything like I had asked.

 In what world does a cake that is suppose to be blue with mounds of bubbles..like a bathtub, come out blue with a white pipe border? Especially when I spent 15 minutes discussing it with the lady and she assured me it would be no problem? See, a little too invested. Its almost 7 years later and Im still irked about it. It was easily fixed when I put the rubber duckies and candles on it. But it was no where as cute as it should have been. OK, off the cake tangent.


I feel a little guilt as far as Ava's parties go because I never quite spend as much time planning them as its not that long after Christmas. I always intend to start planning earlier but it never quite happens. This year at least we picked the theme early so I was able to at least start thinking of ideas (ie reading everyone else's ideas that I googled.) She changed her mind a million times and then settled on a ballaringa party. As much as she loves ballet and ballerinas she can not say it right. It always comes out ballaringa. Which I love.

As previously posted these were the whole reason I really wanted her to choose a ballet party.

I had originally planned on making a cupcake tower like this

via Design Dazzle

But I ran out of time. Which was ok because I had 2 cute cake plates that I really liked and by that time I was so frazzled I was way more apt to let things just be.

I made no sew tutus for all the girls. For directions you can go here. But of course, like so many of my parties, I dont have pictures of them. Some of the girls wore them but some already came in ballet outfits so they just took them with them when they left. I have a few pics of some of the girls but since they arent my children Im not going to post them.

I made really cute tissue paper flower pom poms. I think, besides the cupcake toppers, these were my favorite. They are so easy to make and they look great. Im going to put them in Ava's room when I take them down.

Yes they are still up. I left them up for Valentine's decorations. I hung them from the ceiling with fishing line. 

Don't you think that 100 balloons sounds like a lot. Me too. But when all blown up they arent as many as I thought. Of course by time this picture was taken a good number of them were already on the ground. What I didnt know, and the party store didnt tell me, is that helium balloons are only good for about 8 hours unless you add this other ingredient..which they sell but didnt offer or even tell me about. Grrrrr. That one will probably irk me for several years. It was all good though because the kids loved kicking and hitting them around. 

We didn't have games because Ava never wants games at her parties. Her reasoning is that she might not win and then she would be sad at her birthday. Its a little greedy of her so one of these days Im going to have to talk with her a little more about that one.

Of course I love planning parties but the real enjoyment I get out of it is this: