A Berry Sweet Birthday!

I had plans to post Sydney's birthday pictures right away and then as usual, life happened, I got busy, and the post never got done. Here we are almost a month later and I feel like these pictures have kind of lost their steam. Old news, you know what I mean?

But alas, I spent a lot of time planning her party, and I do want to share the details so, albeit a little late, here is all the nitty gritty on her Berry Sweet birthday bash!

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Grandma stopped in early the morning of Sydney's party to say hello and drop off her present, which included a lovely wooden puzzle set, and also, some stickers. After she left I carried on getting ready and later, when I came back into the living room, I found that both of my children had been bedazzled with stickers. The bedazzler was very proud of her works of art!

The party was loosely strawberry themed with reds, pinks, and blues. I kind of loved the colors and figured I could use some of the decorations again as memorial day or fourth of July decorations in years to come.

I found this cheap, beautiful, craft idea in a BHG magazine. It's just paper, craft sticks, and glue! I love it! It's still hanging while I try and figure out what to do with it now!

Deserts included chocolate cupcakes with strawberry butter-cream frosting,  strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, strawberry shaped cut out cookies, assorted strawberry jelly beans, and chocolate covered strawberries. Honestly, I don't think the cupcakes were a huge hit with the kids. I'm not sure if it's just because there was so much other food and they were full or if they really didn't like them but I noticed several half eaten cakes. (Not a surprise with Sydney who tends to eat the frosted top and leave the rest!)

The weather ended up being beautiful so we were able to spend most of the day outside again. I didn't take a ton of pictures because I was busy enjoying the party (next time I'll have to remember to hand my camera over to someone else!), but there was lots of good food, the best sangria ever!, pinatas, a bonfire, and tons of friends and family!

Cheap grocery store flowers, fishing line, and curtains from the house that I think need to make a more permantent appearance outdoors next summer.

Sydney's kind of been into the idea of fishing lately (go figure!) so I thought it might be fun to do that old fishing game we used to do when we were kids. My nephews agreed to be the men (or fish in this case) behind the curtain, hooking up candy and prizes to the fishing line. The game was a huge hit, even with the older kids, which surprised me!

Of course Sydney finally got her birthday cake!

Super embarrassed face finally gave way to excitement when she got to blow out the candles.

The night ended with a lovely birthday duet concert and one partied out baby.

I think Sydney is getting old enough now, that next year we will probably do something a little more low key. Some fun activity that she wants to do with her friends rather than the usual big barbaque cookout that we've been doing, BUT, I know one little girl who has a big numer-o-uno birthday coming up that won't mind a big BBQ bash! :)