Party Animals

It was between superheroes and animals. Since we'd thrown Henry a superhero birthday bash when he turned 5,  we (which really means I) decided on animals for William's fourth. I just couldn't get my creative juices flowing for another superhero party. But I remembered this from a post back in August and felt inspired.

{A gold leaf spray painted plastic animal found here. } 

Isn't it super cute? It was my only inspiration for the party and ironically, I didn't end up even doing this cute little DIY. I did ask Patrick for a drill a few days before the party, but in the name of keeping things low-key, I opted against it. Plus can you put a spray painted animal on a cupcake and deem it edible? I didn't know.

{A huge thank you to Sara for taking all of these party pictures. You are super talented and I'm so happy to have these lasting memories from the day!}

I ended up drawing inspiration from the invitations and settled on a bright color scheme of tangerine, lime green and aqua blue.









































At the last minute, we had the change the date of the party due to illness. William came down with strep throat on Friday and started an antibiotic that morning. We bumped the party to Sunday and even though the day wasn't as sunny or warm as Saturday would have been we were all blessed with good health.

Along with the color scheme, I also chose to keep this party low-key. For me keeping it low-key is about not getting swept up in all of the pre-party stress and fuss of over doing and over spending. I accepted gracious offers to help and delegated most of the food duties to generous family members who offered to bring dishes to pass.

Sandi brought home baked breadsticks {there were three kinds : poppy seed, parmesan and sesame seed and for those of you locals, they tasted just like the Monicals ones do}, Mary brought the ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen {the birthday boy's special request and she decorated it with cute animals and trees she brought from home}, my Mom brought the delicious salad and created the pretty veggie tray and Sara brought the darling frosted cupcakes and Costco's famous {in our household at least} artichoke jalapeno dip and chips. I'm thankful for my sweet and generous family!

It left me to do the things I really love the most - making a couple of treats and desserts, favor bags for the kiddies and simple decor. I got to focus on the reason we were celebrating - another year of life for our birthday boy and being surrounded by our family and friends who pour so much love into his life - and not just the celebration.

Happy 4th Birthday William!