Carousel Party!

greeting friends

The spread:

Party favors

I think people closest to me know that I love to throw a party. I love all the planning and the little special touches that go into them. Unfortunately, I don't have many excuses to throw a party, so when Maisie's birthday rolls around I go a little crazy planning. It starts months in advance and as stressed out as I get some times, I love every minute of it. I hope Maisie remembers her parties for years to come.

Maisie is known as "the girl with the bow". It's very rare that Maisie doesn't have one pinned on the left side of her head, holding her bangs back. I cannot see a bow without thinking of her, so beacuse of that, I wanted her party to be littered with them. I made a bow garland of out rolls of crepe paper that turned out so cute that I figured I would hang it in her room post party. I still have yet to do that, but it will be done. I found cupcake toppers too that helped tie in more bows. Maisie also loves polka dots so I threw in some of those as well.

As far as food goes, Maisie loves hot dogs (how do kids gravitate to foods such as hot dogs, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese?!), so I thought it would be cute to have mini pigs in a blanket and serve with an array of fruits, veggies and crackers. We even had crustless almond butter and jelly sandwiches for the kiddos and to make it a little more adult friendly I made a spinach artichoke dip with homemade crostini and Austin made caprese skewers complete with tortellini. My sister in law made my favorite cookies to bring as well.

A lot of love went into the party. I'm proud of how everything turned out, even if we did forget to serve the ice cream and cream puffs, or set up the paper flowers that Camille and I slaved away making for 4 hours one afternoon (what the heck Camille!? How did we forget those?!). 

As far as our gift to Maisie, we got her a Schwinn roadster who she affectionately named Schwinny "who's a very good trike". She loves it and it fits her perfectly, if only we can get the good weather to come back so we can practice her peddling some more. She also got so many wonderful and thoughtful gifts by everyone who came. Thanks guys!

To our friends and family:

I can't express enough how nice it was to see every one. We are all so happy you were able to come. Thanks for helping us celebrate our little Maisie.