Pancakes and PJs

One thing you will learn about moi, is that I am a planner. I start Christmas shopping early (I have already begun), I'll plan a vacation itinerary and I make lots and lots of lists. It's just me. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a go with it type of girl, but a list is some time a necessity.

Annually when the Fall season begins the Princess and I start coming up with ideas for her birthday. The fact that she is getting older has made it even more fun because now she really gets into the festivities. The girl loves breakfast. She could eat pancakes, grits and eggs morning, noon and night.

Each year we have planned her party during the lunch hour and each year people leave our home to go to someone else's for a Christmas party, ourselves included, so this year I decided to have her party really early, and I wanted to share with you, my ideas...

images via

I love the idea of doing an early morning party, where everyone shows up in their PJs and we have breakfast instead of your typical party snacks (i.e. sandwiches & veggie trays). That gets boring after a while, and I think this is a great idea with her birthday being in the center of the biggest Holiday of the year when most everyone's calendar is jam packed with parties and festivities.

I absolutely love the pancake bar where you choose your toppings, and the hot chocolate bar with cinnamon sticks and marshmallows. It gets me so excited, plus I love to decorate.

We have always done the Princess's party at home and I've always had a theme that I went with, decorated and baked by...

First Birthday {Ladybug Themed}

I made the ladybugs by painting small flower pots pink and cutting and gluing on brown felt dots to them, along with googly eyes and felt ropes. I could not find lime green shredded paper, so I bought lime green paper from Staples and put it through the shredder at work for a "grassy" look.

I purchased the ladybug chocolate molds from Michaels and made those myself. The ladybug chocolate pops we did in lieu of goody bags. Everyone loved them!

Second Birthday {Monkey Themed)

I have always made her birthday cake. I found this monkey online, printed him out, personalized the banner and glued him on a cake stick, it worked perfectly!

I bough these mini bags offline and printed out the tiny monkey's on cardstock and just glued them onto the bags. Then we filled them with candy for guests to take home.

This isn't a good picture, but I also made the banner from cardstock and with a hole puncher and string. It only took me about an hour and saved me $25 from the one I was looking at buying offline.

I always buy her a coordinating outfit, and I found this shirt from Gymboree on sale...score!

Her third birthday we did a Princess theme and her fourth birthday we did a Hello Kitty theme, each year gets better and better and I get more ideas, however I have no pictures of those parties on the computer I'm using now, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

So pancakes and PJs, what do you think?

xo