It’s hard for me to even comprehend that my once teenie tiny baby is now a FOUR-year-old. The past three years we have thrown a blowout party for him at our house. This year I decided we would try to do it somewhere else to try and remove some of the stress that comes along with planning a party at home. We went and checked out the Gulf Coast Exploreum in downtown Mobile, and immediately knew that is where we wanted to have the party. The staff is so kind, attentive (they setup and take down all of the decor), and they are very reasonably priced. They also provide a cake if you choose, but we decided to go with our friends at Flour Girls Bakery.
Walt had a birthday last week, and I am still trying to get over the fact that my once teenie baby is now THREE! This year is going to be the last year that I host a birthday party at home for him for awhile, so it was my last chance to go all out decorating my house with cute kids decor until Oliver gets older. Walt is obsessed with superheroes, particularly Batman, so I knew right away that would be the perfect theme. Utilizing Batman’s color scheme allowed me to keep the decor monochrome. We learned the hard way on his first birthday not to spend a ton of money on decor, as it rained the entire time and ruined everything! I was thrilled that we were blessed with great weather (minus the BLAZING heat that day with 100% humidity), but this time I was able to find all of his decorations, including invitations, shipped from my favorite new company in Austrailia for under $200!
Bathing suit season is just around the corner (or already here where I live), but I just can’t help myself when Easter rolls around and those delicious Reese’s peanut butter eggs come out. I truly have an addiction to them! When we pass the display at Target that ALWAYS has bags of Reese’s in it, Walt likes to yell out as loud as he can “there’s mommy’s snack”. Haha, embarrassing. I know. Instead of buying a (giant) pack this year, I decided to try to make some myself. These turned out so good. I mean seriously… they are SO good! I already had every ingredient I needed for the recipe at home except for one, so it was super easy! They also take very little prep work time, which is a big win for busy mamas like me.
I started thinking about Walt’s first birthday party before he was even born. When we were in Africa we decided we were ready to become parents. We had such a peace about it and knew the time was right. So, what better theme for a first birthday party than a Safari? Of course, I went straight to Pinterest for some inspiration. I found a bunch of great DIY ideas for his party!
I have always loved chalkboards. When I was a kid, I would get so excited when my teacher would call on me to go to the chalkboard to answer a question. When I heard about chalkboard paint, I knew I had to have that for my boys. While doing some research to figure out how I wanted to create the chalkboard, I found out about magnetic primer. We don’t have a magnetic refrigerator, so I knew I wanted something for Walt to be able to play with all his magnetic letters and numbers on. This was perfect! I was a little nervous about how well it would actually work, but I figured it was worth a shot.