Amelia's Milk and Cookies Party

I have finally recovered from the party enough to blog about it and post some more photos! When I was trying to come up with a follow-up to the first birthday party, I looked at lots of my fave party blogs for inspiration. After coming across these adorable parties, I just thought milk and cookies would be a perfect fall party for a two year old. Who doesn't love milk and cookies, right? I knew that I wanted to give our party a more colorful spin than the ones I had seen in blogland.
 
And colorful it was!

I'll keep the commentary to a minimum and just let the fab photos by my friend Lindey speak for themselves.

 

 

I have to give credit for the adorable tiered trays. I saw the idea here and just knew they'd be perfect for our party. I added a coat of a food-safe sealant I found at Home Depot so I could serve cookies on them without killing our guests.

I made the cookies pops myself. It took forever, but I just didn't want to pay what they were selling for elsewhere. It was fun learning some new tricks. It was my first time to work with royal icing and I was pleased with how they turned out. I just love the internet for teaching me so many new things and providing so many great ideas!

  

 

The banner, cupcake toppers, favor tags and all other paper goods were courtesy of one of my favorite party girls, Kim at the TomKat studio. Back in the summer when I started planning, I posted on her facebook wall hoping one of her fans might know where I could find a cute cookies and milk invitation. To my surprise and delight, Kim contacted me herself and said she had been dying to design a collection around this theme. I was so pleased with how it all turned out.

I loved using some of the photos Lindey took of Amelia this year along with the fun storyboard she made from the invitation photo shoot to decorate the food table. 

 



There were several disasters on party day and the days leading up to the party that led to much stress for me, but luckily most of the guests never knew the difference. And even though the cake fell apart on the drive to the party, I was able to save the top tier and the birthday girl didn't seem to mind.

She loved opening her gifts! Well, for a while, anyway. She wasn't a fan of some of her guests getting in her personal space and touching her stuff and she may or may not have bitten one of them and had to have a time out. Sorry again, Pay!

While lots of things didn't go according to what I had planned, we still had a great party and we had fun celebrating with lots of our friends and family. Thanks again to everyone who came and to everyone who helped make yet another over the top party happen for this cute girl!

I am already saying I am going to scale it down next year, but some people are saying they will have to see it to believe it, ha. We shall see in a year!

And because I always wish others would share on their party posts:

Sources:

Amelia's shirt: Addy Reece Boutique

pettiskirt: Patiecakes

paper straws: CDK designs

banner, cupcake toppers, cake topper, favor tags, cookie jar labels: The TomKat Studio

polka dot baloons: Polka Dot Market

large milk bottles: Crate and Barrel (I have since seen them at Wal-Mart)

small milk bottles: reused Starbucks frappucino bottles

photography: lindeymageephotography

Two.

More party pics coming soon (promise), but today I wanted to bring back the old bullet point list about what Amelia is up to these days for memory's sake. At two years old, Amelia:

• talks ALL.THE.TIME. Seriously, she never shuts up. She has gone from saying a few real words here and there to speaking in full sentences most of the time. She is able to repeat anything we say, and usually only has to hear a word one time to remember it. For example, the other day I told her the trash smelled disgusting and then she said it a million times. We laugh at something she has said every single day. The other day she told her baby, "Bless your heart," lol. She also says "Oh my goodness" all the time and our current favorite thing she says all the time is "What you doin?" She will ask you what you are doing all day every day and continue to ask you even after you tell her what you're doing over and over again.

• sings any time she is not talking. I'm not kidding, she is never, ever quiet. She loves to sing and is very quick to learn new songs. Her favorites are E-I-E-I-O (Old MacDonald had a farm), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, ABC song, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Jesus Loves Me, The Wheels on the Bus, 5 Little Monkeys, If you're happy and you know it, B-I-N-G-O, and the Jack Johnson songs on the Curious George soundtrack. She will try to sing along even if she doesn't know the song.
• is still working on potty training. She wears pull ups during the day and goes on the potty sometimes, but she has lost interest in telling us she needs to go recently so we're kind of taking a break before going full force again. I hope she will be fully potty trained in the next couple of months.
• can say her ABCs, count to around 16 and knows most of her colors. She tries to trick us and say everything is pink when we ask her, but she really does know most of them. She also asks, "What color is it?" all the time and I think it sounds so precious.
• loves to swing more than anything in the world.

• still loves to read books. Her teacher says the first thing she does when she gets to school is goes and gets a book and goes to a chair to read. I love that she loves to read.
• also enjoys playing with puzzles and baby dolls, cooking on her play kitchen, having tea parties and coloring.
• still thinks there's nothing better on TV than Dora, but we are kind of over her and are trying to get her interested in new things. She also likes the Backyardigans and Sesame Street.
• is very opinionated about what she wears. We have battles every morning before school when she doesn't want to wear what I have laid out for her. She prefers dresses and HATES pants. I know. I have created a monster.

• throws a good ole fit every chance she gets. I have no idea how to stop this. We have tried time out and spanking, ignoring, etc. I guess it's just her age. She has frequent meltdowns when something doesn't go her way.
• still doesn't eat very much, but she seems to be getting a little better. She has become a fan of the chicken nugget, so that's at least some kind of protein she'll eat.
• wears 24 months or 2T clothes and a size 6 or 7 shoe. She can still wear smaller sizes in dresses and skirts and we are even doing some 12 months dresses from last year over leggings as tops.
• loves to go to school and church. She loves her friends and can name them all by first and last name. It is so cute when she says, "There's Joy Leggett!" or "That's Braxton Orr's mama!" Love that. She can also say Amilla Kate Shurr when we ask her what her name is. She has problems with her "f" sounds and says "sh."

Year two has flown by even faster than the first year, it seems. It has brought new parenting challenges, but even more joy than we thought possible as we have gotten to know this precocious little girl and her spunky personality even better. She is such a joy to us and our entire family and none of us can remember what life was like before her.

Happy Second Birthday, sweet Amelia Kate Furr. We love you to pieces!

A few birthday girl pics

It's birthday week! But luckily for me and everyone around me, we have already had the party and this week we can just have fun and celebrate this girl turning two years old!

photo by Lindey

Many more details and photos from the party to come, but I wanted to share a few snaps of Amelia that my friend Misti shot at the party, and to thank everyone for coming to help us celebrate. A special thanks goes out to my sister and Justin, my parents, Nina, Lindey and Heather for helping get things together at the last minute. So many disasters almost ruined the whole thing, but they helped us pull it all together. Also, thanks to Joyce and my mom for helping me with cookies.

With all the disasters, Amelia and her friends had a great time, and that's what's important. More photos and details coming soon!

What's wrong with this picture?

Any guesses?  Perhaps this will help.

Yes, anytime you've seen Amelia sleeping in the past year and a half, chances are, she has had a paci in her mouth. She didn't care much for it for the first six months of her life, but some time after that, she developed a deep affection for it. I've been dreading the day that we actually had to say goodbye to our dear friend, but I knew that as she approached age two, it was time. I tried a couple of tactics that were not well received in the past couple of months, but on a whim Sunday night we were playing before bed and she threw her paci on the floor. Later, she asked for it and I said, "It's gone. You threw it down." She eventually went to sleep and I thought that maybe there was hope for us after all.

I told her teacher yesterday about our small victory and she promised to try to help. When naptime came at school, Amelia went to her cubby looking for her paci and Ms. Stacy said, "It's not in there, Amelia." She said Amelia then just went to her cot with Lovie and went to sleep! Who knew? We tried again last night and she asked for it once, but I just told her it was gone. She whimpered a little, but eventually did go to sleep without it, although I know it would have happened quicker if she had had her paci.

If we can make it through today, and then tonight, I will really feel like we've accomplished something! Don't they say that it takes three days to make or break a habit? Or something like that... Anyway, PTL for no paci (and hopefully no speech therapy due to prolonged paci use like her father had to do as a child. Ha!) The only downside to no paci: She NEVER stops talking! I do love to hear her sweet little voice, but when it's time to go night night, or when Mama is trying to watch the Real Housewives of Atlanta, it's time for quiet!

It's that time again...

If you know me at all, you know that there are few things in life that I love more than planning a party. I will not even talk about how long I have been thinking about and planning this party, but let's just say I am so excited that the time has finally arrived! The fact that Amelia has to actually grow up and turn two in order for us to have this party is a sad coincidence. As cliche' as it sounds, it really seems like only a short time has passed since her first birthday. But there will be time for all that sentimental talk on her actual birthday week! I wanted to share the invitation now that they've all gone out. 

How can milk and cookies not be fun? Special thanks to Lindey and one of my party planning idols, Kim at the TomKat studio for the invitation design. I can't wait to share more with you after the party!

ABCs