Art Party: Part I

We celebrated Griff's 5th birthday last Saturday. I can't tell you how excited I was! He hasn't really ever had a BIG celebration. Our poor little middle child always gets the short end of the stick, so I REALLY wanted to do something to show him he's loved and to celebrate him, because he's a very special addition to our family.

When I think about Griffin, I think. . . CANDY, SUGAR, COLOR, ART. . . .so I decided on an 'art party', with lots and lots of color. It's a regular thing for me to be asked by Griff, if we can PLEASE paint the walls in the house with rainbow colors, so I worked hard to make the house a big rainbow.

Like I mentioned before, playing hostess stresses me out, so I decided to keep it small. We invited Sarah and her family! Sarah's son, Jack, is just one month older than Griff and he's one of Griff's favorite people in the whole world.

Friday night, after the boys went to sleep, I put twenty colorful balloons in their little room. I also put a note and some candy in their mailboxes.

this is after he woke up in the morning:

I worked all night long after they went to bed (Brad was on a camping trip with the scouts that night and was away at work the two days before that, so this was pretty much all up to me to get it done). We bought a big pack of colorful paper at the party store and I went to town making decorations with it- party hats, dot garlands, zig zag streamers, and paper strip garlands. There was SO. MUCH. MORE I had in store, but obviously I didn't have much time so a lot went undone, and I was fine with that. My main goal (aside from making the birthday boy happy) was to keep myself from stressing out. The day couldn't have turned out more perfectly.

thanks to eric, for sending me some of the pics from his phone

From the moment he woke up, Griffy was in such a good mood. He's not used to getting so much attention. : )

Wish I could say the same for his sis.

Another thing Griffy likes, is to help mama do some baking (see this post). In the morning I had him help me make these mini chocolate cakes. He had fun pouring everything in and licking the spoons afterwards.

After our guests arrived, we went out for pizza, then came home and each kid got to decorate their own mini cake and scoop of ice cream.

It seriously took him a good 4 minutes to blow the candles out. This boy cracks me up.

I used these little paper bowls left over from some Valentine's treats, to hold mini m&ms and regular-sized m&ms for decorating their desserts. We also had big and small gum balls and sprinkles in every color of the rainbow. I found the tiny colorful spoons at Zurchers.

Total sugar overload, but I didn't hear anyone complaining! I had the kids watch as I poured 7up into the cups and they changed different colors.

We took some time decorating and eating and then headed outside for some art! This is far too long already, so I'll tell you about the rest in another post.

credits:

balloons in the room- crafty moods

party hats- oh, happy day

zig zag accordian streamers- oh! party

chocolate cakes- a little bit of everything

strawberry cream cheese frosting- glorious treats

paper strip garland- minieco

magic color-changing drinks- petitchef