A "Berry" Happy Birthday!

Ava turned 2 years old on the 16th. WHAT!? I truly don't know where the past year went. It seems like only a couple of months ago I was hosting her first birthday party!  Ava is currently infatuated with the new Strawberry Shortcake and after debating between two different themes for her party, I settled on Strawberry Shortcake.  I knew she would love it!  As I was preparing items for the party over the past few weeks she would see something and her eyes would light up and she would scream, "Shortcake!"...and I knew the party was going to be awesome! 

Lyle had been in Albequerque, NM for the previous few days for work and had just come in on the 2:00 flight.  His parents picked him up from the airport and brought him with them to the party.  Which meant I was on my own for set-up!  Good thing I have a big, strong 10-year-old boy to help me with the heavy lifting!  Sean really was a big help setting up;  tracking down mini tables, setting up all the chairs, adjusting table heights, etc.  He's such an amazing son (in spite of the frustrations we all go through as we get older), and I'm blessed to be his Mom.

Lyle's cousin Heather had hosted a Strawberry Shortcake birthday party about a year ago and I "stole" her idea to have a station for Strawberry and each of her friends.  They each had their own table decorated in their color (tablecloth, balloons and a picture of the character framed in a painted dollar store frame) and goodies for the girlie guests to take home.

While we were waiting for family members to arrive, the kidlets played with balloons, the boys played basketball and the women visited.  I love hosting birthday parties at the church...there's so much more room for the kids to run around and they don't feel like they can't play. 

When the party finally began, we started with Orange Blossom.  Orange runs the store in Berry Bitty City and at this station each girl got a goodie bag to put all their goodies in and a Strawberry Shortcake coloring book ($1/ea. at Walmart) and crayons.

Next, we headed over to Lemon.  Lemon Meringue runs the salon and each girl picked a small baggie with a mini nail polish and Lip Smackers chapstick.  We ended up sitting at Raspberry's table to paint our nails because it was the easiest way to accomplish the task.  Ava was enthralled with watching me paint her nails and I've since remembered why I've only ever painted her toes;  she bites her cuticles and eats the polish!  Yikes!  Apparently, she also knows how to unscrew tops now, Aunt Vicki grabbed my attention just in time to see Miss A with her nail polish open and ready to do her own thing...on her tutu!  Gah!  When did she learn how to do that!?

After we were all finished painting nails, we stayed at Raspberry's table to make bracelets!  Raspberry Torte runs the Boutique in Berry Bitty City and makes and sells clothing and accessories, so I thought making bracelets would be the perfect activity!  I found adorable clay beads that look like fruit (although there were a few "fruits" none of us could place) and we spent almost 45 minutes making bracelets.  The girls enjoyed making theirs and the Moms couldn't resist making an additional one or two bracelets with my stash of colorful beads.  Image of beads from Etsy site where I bought them.

Then it was on to Blueberry Muffin's Bookstore!  I asked Ava's Grandma Susan (who is a school librarian, incidentally) to read the girls a Strawberry Shortcake book, and then they all got to take one for their goodie bag!

By this point, Sean was extremely bored.  He had hoped that some of his other cousins would come (cousins who are not only his age, but his gender) so he could have someone to hang out with, but they couldn't make it, so he was stuck watching all the girlie fun.  He's a good big brother though, and laughed and smiled at the appropriate times!

It was starting to get late, so we headed over to Strawberry Shortcake's Cafe for cake and ice cream!  I made a butter cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries in between the layers and then covered it in marshmallow fondant.  I've realized I'm no fondant guru.  I think I'll leave that to the professionals and stick with what I can do...piping.  It's not the prettiest cake...but it's delicious!  And I guess the only thing that matters is that Ava liked it;  as I was making it she kept saying, "pretty".  We had neopolitan ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries to finish off the snacks and water with limes for drinks.

As we sang Happy Birthday to Ava she would get shy and hide in my shoulder, but as soon as the song was over she would look at me and say, "Mama, more".  We would laugh, and then sing it all over again!

We rounded out the stations with Plum Pudding's Dance Studio.  I made each of the girls a wand to dance with, ran iTunes from my laptop through the sound system and let the girls dance away!  They were giggling and twirling and having a blast!

Present time!   Ava received so many great gifts.  It was such a great night and when I saw some of the Mom's the next day, they told me their girls wouldn't put their goodie bags down for anything!  They thought it was the BEST party they'd EVER been too (their emphasis)!  I love when my vision turns out.  It was a party to remember.  I'm taking about a week break, and then gearing up for Easter!