40 Days of Celebration

My husband turns 40 today!

A lot of his family lives out of town, so I wanted a way that we could involve lots of people in his celebration without them having to travel.

Enter the 40-Day Countdown Party... My idea was for him to receive something special representing the number of days left until his birthday, starting 40 days ahead of time. On each person's day, they either dropped off items at our house, emailed them to him, or mailed them to arrive on that day.

Here's the final list of what he received:
40 birthday cake candles
39 half-dollars
38 marshmallows
37 lollipops
36 cookies
35 packages of Ramen noodles
34 baseball cards
33 balloons
32 (+18) balls at the driving range
31 minute nap
30 sticks/pieces of gum
29 jelly beans
28 things that happened in 1972
27 mints
26 word searches
25 jokes
24 mini cupcakes
23 wasabi peas
22 fortune cookies
21 Jumble puzzles
20 dollar donation to charity
19 sunflower seeds
18 batting cage pitches
17 candy bars
16 oz. of coffee
15 pretzel rods
14 sodas
13 bagels
12 doughnuts
11 origami cranes
10 lottery tickets
9 car fresheners
8 iTunes songs
7 snack bags of peanuts
6 different beers
5 cans of chili
4 peanut butter cups
3 bags of popcorn
2 bottles of wine
1 gift card

It was a ton of fun, and he looked forward to each day.

Here's the card that I made him:

7th birthday Tea Party

My medium child just turned 7. She decided six months or so ago that she wanted to have an American Girl party, so went the English tea party route. It was tons of fun, and I thought I'd share here what we did (also so that I can remember for my youngest daughter someday!). I've added links to the pictures that I was inspired by.

The invite requested “Fancy tea party attire” (dress, gloves, hat, pearls) and had a tea bag tied to the top.


American Girl-themed Food:
Sombrita’s Sandwiches: pimento cheese on mini bagel, chicken apple salad on waffle, ham/American/lettuce/Italian dressing on wheat, turkey/cheddar/tomato/vinaigrette dressing on white

Josefina’s Pinwheel wraps

Felicity’s Cheeses & crackers

Penny’s Carrot sticks/ranch

Sugar’s Fruit kebobs/yogurt dip

Mrs. Merriman’s Macaroni Salad

Coconut’s Treats: lady fingers, cream puffs, rock candy sticks, marshmallows

Kit’s cakes: Big & Mini cupcakes (choc. & white, colored icings, sprinkles), cake pops

Cecile’s drinks: Sprite w/ Kool-aid ice cubes






Cupcake Bases: Williams Bakery
Inspiration: stacked cupcakes, adding cotton candy

Cake Pops credits: Short and Sweet Desserts

Decor:


Plastic "chocolate" rectangular plates that were on sale at CVS, doilies for placemats, decorated tables with rose petals, confetti, lace, tulle, pearls, beads, and ribbons.

The birthday girl got a chair decorated with ribbons, and she made tissue flowers for the others.



We had a photobooth, which the girls loved. I used paper chains/tissue paper in background, and the girls held either a paper fan or flower as a prop.


Behind the food table, I hung the Happy Birthday banner from home and placed her age in photos on a foam board.


Favors: teacups with treats inside (I also made hair barrettes for each girl).

We also had craft tables: bracelet making (I prepackaged beads and stretchy cord to make it easy on the kids), American Girl sticker coloring, edible teacups (butter cookie, non-pariels, big marshmallow, life saver, icing), and an American Girl word search. We played a game called Pass the Parcel and had a dance party at the end.