Riley's Birthday Party

I am happy to say that Riley's birthday and birthday party turned out fantastic. I wasn't sure it was going to come together after I had 3 weeks of sleeping issues, one week of migraines and body pain, and a long weekend of battling a cold. At least the stomach flu waited until a few days after the party was over to visit me. : )

Riley's birthday was on Thursday and her party on Saturday. I wanted her to have something fun to do on her birthday so I finished up one of the decorations/activities I had planned for her party and her grandma and grandpa came over. They brought her a few outfits including this cute sweater.

After opening some gifts we went into the basement to see her other big surprise... a room full of balloons! We have a room in the basement that is currently unfurnished so it seemed like a good spot to fill with 75+ balloons. I hung streamers with balloons attached in the doorway for fun and to keep the balloons from wandering out of the room.

Ahh, the first look. Absorbing it all.

And then jumping right in.

Balloons flying. Hair electrified.

Attacking grandma.

Needless to say she enjoyed the room of balloons which is a huge turnaround from her first birthday in which there was one balloon and she freaked out.

I must say that I have to give a big shout out to Pinterest where I found a lot of great ideas and to my husband for assisting me - especially in blowing up most of the balloons.

Riley loves books so we decided that a book themed party was right up her alley. I made invitations which doubled as bookmarks and encouraged guests to bring books (instead of toys) as gifts.

The other side had a picture of books and the party details of where and when.

On the door you will see all the pictures from the post I did on her birthday. I never got around to taking a picture with all the food set out, but we served fruit, veggies, cheese and crackers, sloppy joes and cupcakes. Pretty simple. I made the tissue balls and used Riley's books to help display the food.

I found this yarn balloon idea and thought it would be so fun and easy. Truth be told they took longer to make than I expected and if you don't get the glue mixture right you may end up with some soft balloons. You can't tell it, but about half of those balloons are a little unstable. But I am still happy with them and Riley seemed to think they were pretty awesome.

I even moved her table to sit under the balloons and she now has a newfound interest in her table. She's always loved sitting at it, but it's amazing how you can move something to a different location and a kid is all over it like it's brand new. Now she wants to eat at this table like grown ups do.

I was inspired by a variety of sites to make these cupcake toppers (like here, here, and here), but most seemed to be purchased or elaborately made and I decided it would be easy enough to make them myself. Just a little copy and paste, print, glue, and they were finished... ok, maybe there where actually a few more steps in there, but they were super simple to make.

I had recently been taking a lot of pictures of Riley reading in her room so this seemed like a good way to display them. The crowns she received at daycare after two different days of celebration. What a lucky kid.

I decided to decorate these closet doors in the balloon room at the last minute. Riley's favorite part was the '2'. Speaking of the balloon room we headed downstairs after eating and spent some time playing with our friends Grant, Olivia, and Michael.

Drunk on balloon.

This kid could spend hours in the balloon room  and probably has racked up many hours over the last week. Since then she has insisted on going downstairs everyday to play with her balloons. She's going to be greatly disappointed when the last balloon is gone.

She spent a lot of time throwing a balloon around with grandpa Frank.

With her uncle and two of her three papa's that were there that day.

Once everyone was wiped out from running around with balloons it was time to sing 'Happy Birthday' and eat some cupcakes. I made confetti cupcakes and frosted half with chocolate with chocolate chip frosting and the other with vanilla frosting and star sprinkles.

Enjoying the chocolate with chocolate chip frosting.

Once she ate the top off the first cupcake she informed us that she wanted another... and then ate the top, or the frosting, off the second one. Check out those dialated eyes.

After grubbing on cupcake it was time to open presents. Once she opened her first present (coloring books from grandpa Frank) I wasn't sure that she wanted to open more since she was so excited about that one, but she quickly understood that there were additional, equally awesome gifts to open.

All in all it was a fantastic birthday party and now we have a ton of super cool books to read. Thank you to everyone for making it a special day for Riley.