R's Frozen themed 4th birthday

Wow another month without a post and it's R's birthday already! Time does not just fly, it zooms, whizzes, poof!

I just had to drop by and share with you my little princess' 4th birthday. She has been waiting for this for as long as "Frozen" and "Letting Go" has been going on forever in almost every little girl's mind.

Good thing National Bookstore already carries the Frozen party paraphernalia (banners, puzzles, coloring booklets, loot bags, cupcake toppers etc.). I just hoarded everything!

Here's her party invite for school which I just got off the internet:

That weekend, I decorated our house ala winter wonderland. I used the lanterns from JD's birthday and made the paper snowflake and pompom.

Christmas decors in September! There's Queen Elsa, loving her sleigh. Oh and hello there Olaf!

She was extremely happy when she woke up.

After mass, we had a little celebration at home. Mama invited her choir mates from church. R changed into her Queen Elsa costume (care of Mama's shop) for her adoring public.

Opening her gifts:

Oh so happy:

For her school celebration, we just brought Jollibee spaghetti, cupcakes from Brownies Unlimited, juice and her beautiful cake (care of my talented officemate).

Happy birthday R! Hope you continue to grow up being a responsible, loving and caring person specially to your little brother. People would come up to me and say that I'm so blessed to have a mature and independent child considering your age. I could never ask for more. I always look forward to our girl bonding moments. Like they say, a daughter is a little girl who grows up to be your best friend. 

We all love you so much! Hope you enjoyed your party! I will never tire of making each of your birthdays special.

JD's Nursery Rhyme Themed First Birthday at Museo Pambata

Hi I'm back!!! Well not totally. I just had a few minutes to spare in documenting this special detail in our lives. JD is one year old! How time flies really.

Amidst all the busyness, I was actually able to pull-off JD's first birthday and my first events styling stint! So just to give you all a glimpse, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Warning photo heavy.

The invite
As what I usually do for my kid's invites, a few cliparts and rhymes from the internet, and here's what I came up with.

The stage
From conceptualizing the backdrop, painting Jack & Jill's well and the Old Woman's Shoe, as well as creating the cardboard tree for the baby, yep that's all me. The cardboard letters and fabric buntings were care of Mama. The Japanese lanterns were all from Divisoria. The pompoms were made by me from Japanese paper and with the help of Martha Stewart's video tutorial. These were all created just a day before JD's birthday (finished painting around midnight). With a little help from my kids' yayas and my eager beaver R, here are the results, voila!

The centerpieces

I searched the net, particularly Pinterest, for various centerpieces. However, surprisingly, there were limited nursery rhyme themed parties that really captured my eye. I just raked through Divisoria, National Bookstore and SM for various knicknacks and those are what I came up with. I just had to mention again, assembly was all done the day before. Yup I really am killing myself (just kidding), it was a break from all the busyness at work. For the flower baskets, I scored great deals at Dangwa and supervised the kids' yayas in the arrangements.

The candy/dessert buffet table and cake

For the backdrop, I made paper medallions out of colored cartolina and printed out JD's monthly pictures and hanged them using wooden clothespins. The carrot cupcakes were care of Mama. Bought the candy from SM supermarket. Containers were from SM as well. The cupcake tier/stand was from Divisoria. To stay in line with the nursery rhyme theme, see the baker (from Pat-a-cake) figurine which I got from Dapitan arcade. It held the scoop and tongs with its little niche at the back.

The cute and delicious cake was from Midnight Snacks. I was so lucky to have found Larisse in FB. I already saw a pic in Pinterest of the cake I wanted. It turned out she was the one who made it! Her prices are very reasonable considering the craftsmanship and the yumminess. I highly recommend her.

The venue and caterer

Daddy A and I really want our events to be a fun and meaningful experience for our guests. We had R's birthday in  a zoo right?! So why not a museum this time. Museo Pambata is literally a museum for kids. Unlike the traditional museum where you can't touch anything. Here, the kids are free to play and interact in the various areas of the museum. One sad thing though is that Museo Pambata does not have a standby generator. And what are the odds that a 15 minute power outage came in time for our party! Bummer I know =( If not for that, I'd give the place a perfect ten.

Our caterer was one of the accredited ones of the venue, Sta. Ines-Pablo Catering. Mr. Andy Pablo was very accommodating and really made his clients the top priority.

The AVP

The songs I used for this AVP were Colby Calait's "Capri", Parokia ni Edgar's "Your Song" and John Lennon's classic "Beautiful Boy". Watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCA0olkEn_Q

The entertainment

In line with our theme, we got a puppet show from Roppets Puppeteers. The Three Little Pigs was great, The Backyardigans was kind of dragging and The Tatlong Sikat, albeit the lesson in the end was maybe not for kids of all ages. Maybe we should've sticked to the classics such as Goldilocks and Jack& the Beanstalk.

The loot bags

The canvas bags were care of Mama's shop. We filled it with story books, craft kits, colored pencils and modeling clay.

Photo/video

Again we went with the very professional Marvin Rosello, whom we first worked with during R's 1st birthday.

Happy first birthday JD! We love you so much. May God continue to bless you with good health and cover you with his mantle of protection. Hope you grow up to be God-fearing and kind.

You may not be able to remember this party, but when you look back at this post, hope you'll know how much love and effort we put in just to make your day special.

Happy 3rd birthday R!

Yesterday, my not-so-little girl turned 3. We had a simple celebration at home right after mass. And just this morning, she also celebrated in school. R woke up yesterday morning so giddy after she saw the decorations were put up in the dining area. She kept on saying "happy birthday R!" and kept on spelling her name which was plastered across the wall. Good thing in church, they had a blessing of all the September celebrants. Here's she is in her birthday dress.

For her third birthday, I went with the theme "Barbie I can be (Cupcake baker)" from one of her favorite Ipad Apps of the same name. The cake and cupcakes were from Red Ribbon. I just borrowed a cupcake tier and put one of R's Barbies as a topper. For the buntings, I just used art paper and gift wrapper (cupcake design). Whereas for the balloons, I just bought a pack from the Japanese store which I can still use for various mini celebrations.

We just had a simple fare of white spaghetti. R enjoyed blowing her cake and licking the icing off the cupcake.

Opening of gifts:

From her lola P:

From Mommy, Daddy and JD:

One last shot before Barbie gets massacred:

Had I known I would have a daughter someday, hindi ko sana pinamigay ung mga Barbie ko, specially the Make Me Pretty Barbie (similar to what we gave her now). Iba parin ung mga classic/vintage Barbie.

This morning in school, we brought naman the cake and cupcakes, as well as Jollibee spaghetti. Here she is with her classmates for the cake blowing:

Thank you classmates for the gifts:

For their loot bags, I filled these cute paper cups I got from Robinsons Galleria (I think the store's name is "Spoiled"), with Hello Panda biscuits, erasers, rubber stamps and mini notepad.

I'm glad my daughter had so much fun with her birthday celebration.

Happy 3rd birthday R! Everyday you just seem to amaze us with the things you learn. I also enjoy every moment you hug me and tell me I love you. Nung baby ka kasi ako lang gumagawa nun, now you initiate it. I love you my little daldalita. Can't wait for our future kikay bonding moments. God bless you always!