Hellobee

Over Memorial Day weekend, we celebrated the girls’ third birthday with a party at our home. Given that my biggest bonding time with the girls are our moments reading together, I’ve stuck with a children’s book classic for all of their birthday parties so far. Their first birthday party was in the theme of Pat the Bunny, and their second birthday party was in the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. For this year, I selected Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and it was the easiest book-themed party I’ve done for them so far!

Like last year, I went simple on the invitations and purchased them through zazzle.com. They happened to have a template in the theme of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and I was able to customize it quickly and easily. The whole process probably only took me about 10 minutes, and I’m all about time-savers right now!

One thing that I really, really loved about this theme is that there are really only two parts to the whole story: 1) a palm tree, and 2) alphabet letters. So for invites, if I hadn’t found such an easy template, a simple palm tree template would have worked out just as well.

For the venue, we held everything at our home just like last year. The guest list was kept small and included only family members and the girls’ caregivers (and their families). In total, we had about a dozen guests. I love having these birthday parties at our home because I can set up decorations over the entire week before the party, which keeps my party-associated stress level on the weekend very low. Likewise, there was no hurry or rush to tear down the decorations as soon as the party ended.

The girls’ previous Chicago nanny (left) and their current Lexington nanny (right) both joined the festivities!

For decorations, I bought a large cardboard-cutout palm tree and added felt alphabet letters going up the tree just like the book. The girls helped me pick out each letter of the alphabet from the big pile and together we created the alphabet – I loved how this birthday party theme had so many built-in opportunities for learning and teaching, and it made my heart happy to introduce such fun into the alphabet and hear the girls sing their ABCs as they looked at the decorations.

A party guest in front of the alphabet palm tree.

On the dining tables, I brought in color with single-color tablecloths and added green palm leaves and foam alphabet letters. The “L” and “A” letters were saved for the girls’ small kid-sized dining table to match the first letters of their names. I also added small groups of balloons around the party space.

In the entryway, I hung two large ribbon palm tree decorations and they were perfect accents when our guests first walked in the house. The girls also loved the flowing streams that fell off these decorations, and they called this doorway the “palm tree cave”.

My sister and I hold the girls in the “palm tree cave”!

Additional decorations included a few copies of the book, multi-colored palm tree garland going up the stairs, tissue paper puffs on light fixtures, simple chalk boards with the words “CHICKA CHICKA” and “BOOM BOOM”, and photo displays of each girl through their third year.

Audrey checking out her photo poster.

For food, we kept things simple with diced fruit, salad, and croissant sandwiches. Keeping in the alphabet theme, I also served small square alphabet cookies. We had coffee on hand, as well as fresh orange juice and prosecco for mimosas.

For the cake, I had our local grocery store create a palm tree out of cupcakes and I added letter candles to get the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom effect. This was predictably the girls’ favorite part of the food and drink spread!

I purchased the girls’ party shirts online from Etsy (TouchOfGrayDesigns) that were personalized with their age and their names. The girls asked specifically to wear tutus with their shirts, so I hunted around on Amazon and found some cute multi-colored tutus with coordinating bows that were the perfect match.

I’m pretty sure that the girls had a great birthday and I was really thrilled by this theme. Like I said before, it was definitely the easiest book-related birthday theme that I’ve attempted so far and I highly recommend, especially for the preschool set!

All photos credited to the amazingly talented Kelly Spottswood from Moms in the Moment Photography. Thank you for helping us to remember this special day!