Balloon wreath

Of all the things I made for my daughter's Up!-themed birthday party, the balloon wreath is the very first thing I did. Since a major part of the movie Up! is centered around balloons, I knew I had to make a balloon wreath for the front door to set the theme. I got the inspiration for the wreath from this one on How Does She? I put my own spin on it, and this is what I came up with!

Supplies:

• Styrofoam wreath form
• Crepe paper
• Balloons
• Greening pins (u-shaped pins found in the flower arranging section)
• Embroidery floss
• Hot glue

First, wrap your wreath form in crepe paper, gluing at the ends with hot glue. If you want to use something sturdier, wrap your wreath form in fabric. I went the easy route, but crepe paper is fragile so you have to watch out for tears as you wrap.

Next, take your greening pins and a balloon and stick them to your wreath form. You want to push the greening pin in around the middle of the balloon to secure. Make sure your balloons are close together so they hide the greening pins.

Repeat this process to make a cluster of balloons. To finish, wrap some embroidery floss around the wreath and glue at the ends.

And now you have a cute balloon wreath, perfect for an Up! birthday...or any birthday party really.

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Disney Up! birthday party

Whew, what a weekend! I have been up to my ears in sprinkles and balloons for the past month, but all the hard work was worth it when I got to see my little girl's smile when she saw her Disney Up!-themed birthday party come to life. I drew a lot of inspiration from across the blogosphere, and I have several tutorials to come later in the week after I recover from all the madness ;)

The Invitation

I used Photoshop and Picnik (while I still can!) to make the party invite. I originally wanted to make an elaborate pop up card design, but it ended up being a simple design with a bunch of balloons. Sometimes simpler is better :)

The Decor

I made my own spin on the balloon wreath for our door (tutorial to come!) to set the theme as soon as people walked up to the house. It was an easy project (love those) and I really love how bright and colorful it was.

And of course, there were balloons everywhere. We bought a small helium tank and blew up as many as we could (about 30) and used them to decorate the house and food table.

The Food

For the table, I made a simple pom pom garland to drape across a blue table cloth, and taped bunches of balloons to the back of the table. Then, I got to have fun making lots of colorful snacks.

1. Skewers of fruit with "cloud dip" - marshmallow fluff and cream cheese whipped together
2. Little cups of cut up carrots and celery with ranch dressing in the bottom
3. Marshmallow pops dipped in chocolate and covered in sprinkles
4. Paper cones made out of scrapbook paper and filled with popcorn
5. (Not pictured) pigs in a blanket

The Cake

Then, there was the star of the show - the cake! Haley has been asking for strawberry cake this whole time, so I went the simple route and made a Duncan Hines cake mix and frosted it with a cream cheese frosting that I got from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It was delicious!

For the cute cake toppers, I found this idea from Potter and Butler. I used felt and made the poufs, then I hot glued them to skewers to make really adorable cake poms (and check out Potter and Butler's shop, they sell all sorts of fun cake toppers!)

The Giveaways

On the giveaway table, I made a sign with the Up! house design on it asking people to take some goodies home with them. Balloon clusters were taped to this table as well.

For the kids, I made "Ellie Badges," the cute little grape soda bottle cap pins that Ellie and Carl wore in the movie. I designed the labels myself and adhered them to bottle caps that I saved (tutorial soon.) There are several shops on Etsy that sell similar pins, but I knew I could make them myself (and I had a lot of fun doing it too.)

I also designed Wilderness Explorer Badges like Russell wore in the movie. I handed these out for the kids to color and cut out at home. I wanted to also make felt sashes for each of the kids to be able to glue the badges to, but I ran out of time. I'll be sharing these printable badges with you soon too :)

For the adults, I made simple sandwich cookies by purchasing store-bought sugar cookie dough and mixing sprinkles into the dough to make colorful cookies. I then made more cream cheese frosting and sandwiched it between two cookies. Each guest received 2 cookies in each cellophane bag tied with ribbon. Luckily, we had some leftovers :)

The Dress

For the birthday girl, I wanted to make her a dress to wear that would look like something Ellie wore in Up! I bought some yellow gingham and flower buttons and followed this tutorial for The School Girl Jumper by Simple Simon and Company. It turned out really cute! And of course, she wore the Ellie Badge that I made her to complete the look.

I sewed cute flower buttons down the back of the dress to complete it. I also had cute little shoes to wear with the dress, but Haley loves her Crocs and it was her special day, so I wasn't about to push it :)

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I hope you enjoyed all the party details! It was a really fun party to plan, especially since I had so much creative reign since there aren't any commercial Up! party supplies out there. 

I'll be sharing the DIY projects that I made throughout the week in case you're planning an Up! party too.

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Birthday party eve

Haley finally got to ride that merry-go-round that's she's been asking about since her trip to the hospital last week. This is actually her second time in the past 3 days, it's her favorite thing to do and we can't deny the girl anything since she got out of the hospital. We're lucky she hasn't realized how much she can get away with yet.

My husband's parents are in town visiting for her birthday party tomorrow, so she's being even more spoiled by them. She deserves it, she's been such a brave girl this past week, even after going back to the doctor's office for a checkup to make sure all is well. And I'm happy to report that she is healthy! Music to my ears :)

So now, we're all geared up and ready to go for this little 3-year-old's birthday party tomorrow! And if you guessed that we're doing an "Up!" themed party, you're right! Our house is currently filled with bags of balloons and lots of rainbow colored everything. I have quite a few projects to share with you after the party is over, I went a little overboard with the DIY's for the party. Up! was just a fun theme to plan around, I couldn't help myself.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

It's party central over here

So, there's this little girl who is turning 3. THREE. I know that I've had a whole year to see this coming, but it still hit me out of nowhere. And she has been talking about her birthday for weeks now.  Haley gets really excited when other people have birthdays because she gets cake out of the deal (I get excited for the same reason), so when we told her that her third birthday is coming up, she hasn't stopped talking about cake. Specifically, strawberry cake. She still speaks in sentences with gibberish thrown in, so I mostly hear something like this:

"Haley's happy birthday, and dsjdagjkl strawberry cake and fjlkh dfkjakdjg present skj open and butterfly inside! Yay!"

I don't know when she decided that she absolutely HAD to have strawberry cake, but that's the one thing I knew had to be included in her party. The present with a butterfly inside? Not sure if I can swing that. I have no luck with pets in general, so putting one in a box as a present to my 3-year-old is probably out of the question.

I'm pretty excited about the theme actually. When I plan birthdays for the kids, I usually have to sit there and think really hard about what to make to go along with the theme. Haley started out wanting a Rapunzel party, but suddenly a couple months ago she had a change of heart.

And Instead of telling you exactly what theme I'm planning, I'm going to be mean and make you guess the theme based on what I have pinned on Pinterest :)

Cake Pom Toppers via Jen on Pinterest

Birthday Wreath via Jen on Pinterest

Sky Jello via Jen on Pinterest

Luggage Display via Jen on Pinterest

 So, any guesses? (that last one pretty much gave it away :) Her party is this Saturday, and we're so excited to celebrate!

Home!

Haley was released today! This morning, things weren't looking promising, but by noon her oxygen levels stabilized and they sent her home. Haley is still healing up, but our happy, energetic girl is back, and boy was she missed. We have to continue to give her some medicines and do breathing treatments with a mask for the next three days, but at least she's home and away from all the machines and doctors.

I am on cloud nine right now. My husband and I took off work all day today so we could spend some quality time with our girl. We cuddled, we colored, and then we cuddled some more. There was absolutely nothing else I would have rather done with my day.

Thank you to all of you who sent their thoughts and prayers our way, they are cherished. Now, I have to make up for all the lost time and finish planning Haley's birthday party this weekend! My only saving grace is that I started planning things out early, whew!

Quck update

Just a quick update on Haley. She's unfortunately still in the hospital, but we're hoping today is the day she will get to come home. The poor girl has so much fluid in her lungs that her oxygen levels aren't where they need to be, so the doctors and nurses are doing what they can to try to clear her lungs and help her to breathe better so she can come home. She has not been a fan of all of the X-rays and blood work, and neither are we. It's heartbreaking to see your little one so scared because she doesn't understand.

Haley is exhausted. If you've ever spent any time in the hospital, you know that it's not a very restful place. The nurses come in often to take blood, perform breathing treatments, and check her oxygen. I will be glad to get her home in her own bed soon.

Despite all the poking and prodding, we did manage to get a few smiles out of her yesterday. We got to unhook her from the machines and go for a walk in the halls and play with some toys and that cheered her up. And since it was her birthday yesterday, my husband went out and brought her back a cupcake and some Disney Princess nail polish and she got to have her nails painted, which is a treat we usually save for special occasions. It was nice to get a glimpse of the happy girl that we've missed over the past few days

I hope you'll excuse me while I am in and out over the next week or so while I tend to Haley and (hopefully today!) bring her home from the hospital. We have been planning her birthday party for this next weekend and with all of the events lately, I'm so glad we decided to plan it then rather than this past weekend. I'll be sharing some details from her party eventually once things calm down. I can't wait to bring her home and celebrate Haley turning 3 and being healthy again.

The worst birthday present

Tomorrow is Haley's 3rd birthday, and she will be spending it in the hospital.

Earlier in the week, Haley came down with a bug that was a combination fever and cough. Her fever finally broke after 2 days of being miserable, but the cough just hung on and became worse. My normally energetic, happy girl turned lethargic, weepy and somber, and it was so saddening to watch. After keeping her hydrated and giving her what meds we could, we decided last night to make a doctor's appointment for her this morning and promised her if she was brave through her checkup, we would take her to ride the merry-go-round (her favorite thing.)

At 8:45am, we sat in the doctor's office waiting our turn, expecting to hear that it was just a bug that was going around. They went through the normal barrage of tests, and Haley was uncharacteristically good through all of it, even with the finger prick and the nose and throat swabs. Strep, negative. Flu, negative. Oxygen level, low. Too low. Due to her cough and low oxygen, the doctor decided that she probably had pneumonia, but they wouldn't be able to tell without a chest x-ray. They tried several breathing treatments to help her levels, but they each failed to bring her level up to where it needed to be. After 2 1/2 exhausting hours at the pediatrician, they made the decision to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital because she needed to be put on oxygen immediately.

After doing a chest X-ray, she came back negative for pneumonia, but since all of her symptoms point to pneumonia, that's what she's being treated for. While pneumonia is certainly treatable, the feeling of helplessness that you feel when you know that your child is sick and there's nothing you can do to heal her is horrible. As a parent you always want to make it better but this time, mommy's kiss can't heal the boo boo. Poor Haley kept crying and asking to be "all done" but instead of  taking her on a trip to ride the merry-go-round and get a cookie, she was taken to a hospital and hooked her up to some machines to stay overnight in a bed that isn't hers. She will most likely have to stay there all day tomorrow as well, but we're praying otherwise.

My husband is staying with Haley at the hospital tonight since she's a Daddy's girl and also because Connor needs to sleep in his own bed. I've done what I can to distract myself but all I see are the boxes of unopened birthday presents and the pile of birthday cards on the table without a happy, healthy girl to open them tomorrow. We're praying and believing that she'll heal up quickly so she can be home for her birthday tomorrow and if you're the praying kind, we would appreciate your prayers as well.