Category Archives: Birthday Parties
Brynnley Turns 2!
Somehow, my tiny little baby is now two years old! Brynnley Alyse celebrated her second birthday on Friday, February 23rd and we had such a fun family day.
This little girl is one Chatty Cathy. She always impresses me with her vocabulary and memory! She has been able to spell her eight-letter name and recite the alphabet (plus or minus a few letters haha) since she was 18-months old.
For the past couple of months, she’s been narrating our day. “Mommy make coffee,” “Brynnley read a book,” “Puppy so cute.” She’s recently starting asking “What’s that?” and “Whatcha doin’, Mommy?” She loves to talk and talk, and becomes a little performer when she’s in the bathtub, making up her own songs and melodies. She keeps me entertained constantly!
Brynnley has also grown quite a collection of stuffed animals that she’s attached to. We can usually persuade her to leave most of them at home, but she can take a quick inventory and spot a missing turtle or bunny within seconds of being in her crib. It’s like Brynnley’s bedtime roll call, making sure all her furry friends are accounted for before hitting the pillow!
Earlier in the month, we went on a family vacation to San Diego (which will be recapped in my next blog post!) and had a very toddler-friendly and Brynnley-focused itinerary. She got to explore Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the beach, Birch Aquarium, and some parks. After all of that excitement, we decided to skip a big birthday party and just have a family day celebrating together on her actual birthday.
My parents always had the house decorated for all of our birthdays, and I want to do the same for my kids. After she went to sleep last Thursday night, Zeb and I stayed up to hang balloons and decorate our dining room with some “party animals.” I found adorable miniature party hats with adjustable straps on Amazon, perfect for all of her stuffed animals. I also made Brynnley a pink strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and used a “2” cookie cutter as a stencil to pour sprinkles into. It was simple but Brynnley loved it! Well, mostly the sprinkles. I think I could have skipped the cake entirely and just gave her a bowl of sprinkles.
On her birthday morning, Zeb and I took Brynnley to the Children’s Museum in Meridian, Idaho for the first time. I think it is PERFECT for her age. I would say 2-4 years old would be about the sweet spot for this interactive play place. It has a variety of rooms, themed with different occupations and lots of hands-on props for the kids to play with. There’s a farm, where they can fish with a magnetic pole. They can even milk the large cow.
Another section had a doctor’s office with an X-Ray machine and a life-size game of operation, complete with scrubs for the little kids to wear. There was an airplane with a cockpit full of buttons, a pizzeria, and even a Trader Joe’s full shopping experience. They could be a customer or a cashier, which of course included a Hawaiian shirt.
There was even some outdoor exhibits, like a car mechanic garage and a garden. Brynnley had a blast and it was a great concept for little ones with big imaginations! We came home to have our usual smoothie lunch and get in Brynnley’s regular 1-3pm nap.
Brynnley Girl is still a ball of infectious joy and energy! She’s got “happy feet” that she can’t control when she’s excited, like a dog wagging their tail. She’s obsessed with most forms of potatoes, puzzles, and her current favorite show Not Quite Narwhal. She also loves getting to spend time with her Gigi & Pop Pop who she has wrapped around her finger.
The last two years with Brynnley have shown me how quickly her little mind grows and changes, and how much she’s absorbing all the time!
Happy Birthday, baby girl!
Brynnley’s First Rodeo! 1st Birthday Party
The last weekend of February we celebrated our baby girl’s first birthday with a little party at our home, themed “Brynnley’s First Rodeo!” I found lots of cute western decor on Etsy and Amazon, along with the CUTEST little birthday outfit you ever did see.
Brynnley’s birthday was Thursday, February 23rd. We hosted her party that Saturday with family and handful of friends. I also asked a local photographer who has shot some family photos for us to come capture the day so that I could leave my phone put away and just enjoy the party and my girl!
The toughest decision was picking a time of day for the party because Brynnley’s sleep/nap schedule can still be a bit unpredictable. She typically wakes up between 7:30-8:30am. Her first nap is just based on whenever she starts acting sleepy or grumpy, usually 10:00-11:00am. Sometimes it’s a 2-hour nap and other times it’s a 35-minute nap! The afternoon nap just adjusts to about 3 hours after she wakes up from her first nap. Giving our guests a month’s notice with a party start time seemed tricky, like there would be a 50% chance of her actually being awake during the party time. So I played it safe and planned the party at 5pm when I knew she would be awake no matter what. That meant that we would need to provide dinner, another aspect of the party that Zeb and I didn’t want to be stuck manning the kitchen or the grill, so we also outsourced dinner to our local Idaho Pizza Company. I had premade a bunch of snacks and sides earlier though!
We had lots of pizza, plus “tractor tires,” “hay bales,” “cowboy pasta salad”, and a “vegetable patch.” All served with pitchforks and shovels, of course. ;) The pasta salad recipe was SO YUMMY! It included ranch dressing and barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown mustard, crumbled bacon, ground beef, shredded cheese, green onions and cherry tomatoes. I really enjoyed the BBQ sauce flavor in this pasta salad, if you’re looking for something different to try!
Brynnley wore the most adorable pink cowgirl hat with her pink tutu and a onesie that I made with a friend’s Cricut. Her onesie said “My first rodeo”, and I also made my husband and I coordinating shirts that said “Not my first rodeo” in matching pink. I’d never used a Cricut machine before and was so impressed with how much it is capable of!
We ordered cupcakes from Albertson’s bakery in soft pink with little fondant horseshoes on top. We got Brynnley her own little smash cake, though I knew my baby is such a picky eater that it was unlikely she would dive in face first like I wish she would! She likes to poke foods, but she is very hesitant to actually try anything new. Unless it is a potato or a hunk of meat, any new food on her plate is met with skepticism. Add to that the fact that 25 people would be in our living room watching her, and it was unlikely that the smash cake would in fact be smashed.
I wanted to preserve her cute outfit for the rest of the party, so I stripped her down to her diaper and a cute little birthday crown before I put her in her highchair. I used half of a highchair banner that came in a party decoration pack on Amazon, and then I made extra tassels to add to it. I ended up actually just hot gluing the banner and tassels to the highchair because it’s the only way I could get them to stay tightly along the edge. Thankfully the hot glue pulled off easily the next day during clean up, leaving the highchair good as new!
Luckily it was pretty easy to clean her off with just a wet burp cloth and get her back into her party clothes! She hung out with her grandparents and friends until it was time to open her presents.
For the sake of not taking 3 hours to open all of her gifts, Zeb and I did most of the unwrapping and Brynnley showed off her clapping skills throughout the evening. It was so cute to watch! She’s such a ham and did not mind having an audience at all. She loves to clap for herself and wave to everybody!
We had such a fun time with our little western-themed party to celebrate Brynnley’s first trip around the sun. Let me know if you want links to any of the party decor items if you’re planning a little first rodeo of your own!
