I cannot fathom how these last three years have gone by so quickly. I was in complete denial about my sweet Tyler's third birthday for weeks beforehand. WEEKS. I. just. can't. He has been an absolute joy to our family. He's sweet and tender and loving and gentle and so so silly. He loves following his brothers around and doing everything they do. He's gained such independence in the last few months and shows us every single day how big he's getting. He's been my clingy-est baby (which is saying a lot considering how attached my other boys were/are), has always been the best eater, started his life as a ginger but has since become a little toe head (omgoodness I love it), he always says that he loves his mommy best (cue all the tearssss), loves to copy everything Blake does, is growing increasingly fond of his daddy (especially when he's going somewhere), and is basically just the best, sweetest little boy there ever was. It's no secret he is the light of our family and has just blessed us all so much. I really have no idea right now whether he is our last baby or not. I'm learning that our plans for our lives are not necessarily God's plan, and that's okay. We just have to trust Him in everything.
I wanted to make Tyler's birthday party super special because he was SO very excited for it to come. He would ask me multiple times a day when his birthday was and how old he was going to be. It was the sweetest thing ever!
I decided on a "Party Animal" theme after finding some party ideas I loved from (you guessed it..) Pinterest. I loved that the theme was super simple and classic but, also loads of fun. So, we gathered up our best jungle animals from the boys' animal collection and went with it! My first move was to purchase a couple more Schleich animal figurines from amazon. They are THE BEST around and are so lifelike. The boys have a few and love them. I decided on a giraffe, polar bear and zebra. I already had a grizzly bear so I used it as well. Amazon has SO MANY to choose from. I really loved the panda bear and the hippo as well but, had to reign myself in a little. LOL
I found a fun little tutorial to make some diy party hats for the zoo animals and a couple for larger stuffed animals as well. They turned out so cute! I also decided to try my hand at a balloon garland. Yikes, so intimidating right?! I searched a tutorial on pinterest and came up with one that made it SO EASY! It was a little time consuming but, really fun and the end result was exactly what I had imagined! The tutorial I used for the party hats is here and the balloon garland tutorial is here.
It's kind of my signature thing to make a homemade buttermilk cake for birthdays. It's just what I always do. I found an amazing recipe a few years ago and it's been a hit ever since. This year, I wanted to try something a little different. I found this yummy recipe on Pinterest for bakery style chocolate muffins with chocolate chip cookie dough cream cheese frosting.... Uhm, they were to DIE for! I decided to make a batch of them along with a small butter cream cake and some fun "Zebra Tail" chocolate covered pretzel sticks. Everything went over super well but, I will say that the next time I make the cupcakes, I'll be doubling my batch (they went soooo fast!). Haha.
As far as food goes, I also found this cute idea to serve milk duds as "Gorilla Poop". Ha. The kids thought that was so funny. And, then I opted for the lazy way and went with Simply Lemonade as "Jungle Juice", instead of mixing up some type of punch. I love Simply Lemonade because it's all natural and is so much better for you than those concentrate mixes. It also tastes amazing so, that was a definite plus. After tossing in a few simple potted plants for effect, my table scape was complete!
I love to diy decor for parties and holidays and found this cute animal silhouette idea on pinterest as well. I just took one large black foam board, printed off my silhouettes (I used coloring pages as my pattern), traced them onto the board and cut them out. I also cut a piece for them to "stand" on and then hot glued them to it. Worked like a charm! For the "three" cursive sign under the balloon garland I simply painted a round piece of cardboard I had with some wall paint we had left over from building our home (I use that wayyyy too much for crafting apparently). I then printed out the word "three" in the cursive font I wanted and traced it onto another piece of cardboard. I very carefully cut it out and painted it with some white chalk paint so it wouldn't be exactly the same but, still a pretty neutral. When both pieces were dry, I hot glued the "three" onto the circle piece and then hot glued some twine to the back for a hanger. And, voila!! I LOVE it!
His birthday party was just so much fun this year, and that took some of the sting away that he's truly not a baby anymore.. I love this boy though. He is such a blessing to us!
I'll link anything else not linked above directly below, in case you're wondering where something came from! Happy Halloween and I pray you have a lovely week friends!!
scrapbook paper (for party hats)
colorful pom garland (seasonal, linked is the halloween version)
similar crochet crown (I made this one for his first birthday lol)
large plush elephant
stuffed alligator
large plush elephant
stuffed alligator
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