Lizzy's 5- Shimmer and Shine!

We got to celebrate my littlest little turning 5 a few weeks ago.

Alas, she's already registered for Kindergarten, full of knowledge and independence and there are in fact no more babies in our house.

In the days leading up to her birthday, I begged her to stay 4. I told her what a gift it was that I got to have two kids and they got to be babies together and how fun it was. How we loved watching them grow, but if she could just stop now, it would be awesome. 

On the eve of her birthday she sweetly tried to talk some sense into me explaining, "Mom. I know you loved me being 4 but I just can't help it. Tomorrow I'll be 5. It's okay, I had to turn into a teenager sometime."

Oh Lulu, you keep us laughing!

We took cupcakes to school for her class and I actually subbed that day at school so I got to be in her room for the celebratory snack and singing. 

We had dinner at Moe's Southwest Grill (per Lizzy's request) and just a little cake at home on her big day. 

Sometime around New Year's Day it was declared that she wanted a Shimmer and Shine birthday. Sounds great to me, I really like letting the kids pick what they want for their parties so the theme was set. 

As for her guest list, Lizzy just wanted to invite "every little girl in America". Whatttt?!?!?

She later amended her list to "just all the little girls in America that I know." We wound up inviting about 20 with 15 friends joining us for party day. 

FIFTEEN tiny girly-girls. It was a giggly, singing, shimmer and shining good time! 

I kept it simple with a cake from the Western that was simple BUT SO VERY DELICIOUS!!!

 We also had ice cream, cheese and crackers and fruit.

And every little girls dream--face painting at our house! 

We had the most WONDERFUL face painter in Birmingham. Seriously, she was fast and so fun and sweet to the girls and prompt and so TALENTED! We used Magic City Face Art if you need face painting in Birmingham call them! 

We played a Shimmer and Shine Party Game, sang Happy Birthday and opened gifts. 

It was a great party, lots of fun for the girls.

They played with every toy in our house, a few cried and I heard at least one got a little spanking from her mommy. But you know what? It was awesome. We're so thankful for the friends we have made and our kids have at school and church and around town. Crazy, loud, fun days like this one remind me of how thankful we are for these kids!

For more Birthday fun check out these posts:

Lizzy turns 4! Build A Bear Birthday

Lizzy turns 3! Peppa Pig Birthday Party

Lizzy turns 2! Pink Party

Lizzy's 1st Birthday Somebunny's One Bunny Party

Jay's Birthdays

Jay's 1st Birthday

Jay's 2 Infinity and Beyond Toy Story Birthday

Jay turns 3! Super Why Birthday for Super Jay

Jay turns 4! Ice Cream Birthday Party

Jay turns 5 Big Boats and Big Fish Birthday

Lizzy's 4th Birthday

Our sweet baby turned 4!

The morning of her birthday started perfect.

Dream house perfect!

She was so sweet-she woke up in the middle of the night and came to our bed and whispered "Mommy, I saw a doll house in the living room. Is itbokaybif I play with it for a minute when it's wake up time?"

I said "yes, baby it's yours it's for your birthday!"

"It's perfect. I love it. Thank you, Mommy. Thank you." She whispered and went back to sleep.

When wake up time came around it was all Barbie, all day. 

It was a school day for Lizzy so we took pink cupcakes with pink frosting and pink sprinkles as she requested. Daddy picked her up from school and then we had cousins and grandparents over for cupcakes and ice cream in the afternoon before church. 

We celebrated with more goodies at church and loved living life in the dream house with our best girl! 

When and how the last 4 years flew by so quickly, I'll never know!

The following Saturday we had her party after the church Easter Egg Hunt.

We had a crew of friends at Build-A-Bear then cookie cake by the carousel at the mall.

Lizzy declared she wanted her birthday at Build-A-Bear last August and never changed her mind. 

The party was so fun! I'm glad she picked it!  

I can't believe we've celebrated Lizzy's birthday 3 times already!

Somebunny's One Party and People

Lizzy Turns Two (Pink and Chic)

Peppa Pig Party- Lizzy's 3!

Hot Dog It's Dad's Birthday

We had a fun time celebrating Joseph with family last night!

I just wanted to do something that was totally Joseph and wanted to have all of his favorite things for him. 

Hot dogs and Oreos were abundant and we had the best time. (And full tummies!!)

I ordered digital files from Lauren Haddox Designs and printed everything at Staples--super simple. My favorite part was this big poster!

I ordered cookies again from Love Handels for our #1 Dad for the occasion.

Hot dogs, chips, dips, baked beans, chocolate cake with Oreo icing, and cookies rounded out the menu. 

We had a fun night celebrating and munching on Joseph's favorites. 

Printables here: Lauren Haddox on etsy

Cookies here: LoveHandels on instagram

Peppa Pig Party for Lizzy

We celebrated our favorite gal with a party featuring her favorite puddle-jumping pig!

Peppa Pig!

It seems like I'm only capable of taking party-people candids or party-prepping pics. I don't think I've ever had a party where I successfully did both.

This year, it seems like I managed the party-prepping pics.

We had a blast and celebrated with family and few friends.

It was a perfect day weather-wise and these kids played hard!

Now, if you're in need of some Peppa inspiration--here's what we did!

Patience did these invitations for me and they were outstanding!!

I'm not sure that you can tell from the photos but the cloud and sun on the outer piece were three dimensional as well as Peppa's balloon and 3 on the inside. Check out those lined envelopes!! These turned out so perfect! Thanks for a great job Patience!

Visit her etsy shop here. She can make anything you can dream up!

We kept the food limited to sweets and candy, it is Lizzy's party after all and my girl loves some cake and candy!

"Goldie" fish

Muddy Puddles

These wonderful cookies!

I really think these were the hit of the party! They were as yummy to eat as they were to look at and Audrey with LoveHandels did an AMAZING job. You can follow her on Instagram, that's how we met. Expect to see more of her creations at future West celebrations!

Granny Pig's Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these using my all-time-favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I substituted Ghiradelli Milk Chocolate Chips this time and they were delightful!

And of course cake, cupcakes and ice cream!

For the cake, I had lots of ideas.

Here's the deal. I don't have a "cake lady" I love to use here in Birmingham. I also didn't want a generic cake from a bakery with a "Peppa-theme-but-not-actual-Peppa". And since Peppa is WAY popular in the UK and lesser known here I was sort of stuck.

I took matters into my own hands and ordered a chocolate cake from Publix and had them just base ice it in pink. I ordered this Peppa and Candy Cat set, then decorated the top of the cake myself piping grass, adding the figures and these royal icing flowers I found online (I ordered both sizes). It ended up being super east and crazy-cheap. It just required a little planning.

I made cupcakes and decorated them to match the cake and used these cupcake wrappers I ordered from Etsy that matched my preppy pink gingham I'd envisioned and had them printed at Staples. Again, perfect look, super easy, crazy-cheap, just a little planning.

For the rest of the decor I ordered these Peppa Pig balloons from Amazon, this Peppa Pig birthday banner and these round Peppa Pig cupcake circles (I cut these out and attached them to goodie bags for pinata loot).

We had punch, a pinata and presents and all of the kids played and played.

There we have it! I rented the blue linens and made the table runners. (Spoiler alert: expect to see some hot pink gingham at future holidays and parties! I love them!)

Such a fun  pretty pink preppy Peppa Pig party for our favorite gal!!!