This week marked the start of Katelyn attending a Chinese Preschool on Monday and Friday mornings. The times worked out perfectly since she has ICDC preschool Tue and Thur. The hours were just 9:30am-12pm so it was just a small chunk of time in the mornings. I could drop off Katelyn before dropping off Tyler, and then get her before picking up Tyler. She was excited to go since Tyler always goes to Chinese school on Sundays and now it was her turn! There were only a couple kids in this class and I was worried about her adapting but she did great! I even came a little early and we sang Chinese songs together. Super cute.
Another bonus for Katelyn's Chinese school was that I wouldn't have her with me when I dropped off Tyler in the mornings. She's known to be quite cranky sometimes. But Wednesday morning she was happy to play with Tyler and his friends.
On Thursday I had a nice lunch with my friends Hanna and Marj. First time the three of us had lunch all together. We all have a common person that annoys us so it was a fun lunch, hah!
Ballet class. Super cute.
It was a nice and warm week, and the kids were learning about leperchauns at school. They really think they're real. Tyler has been talking about this Leperchaun trap project for school: each kid needed to build their own trap. He was at Jordan's house on Thursday and apparently they were discussing their plans in their backyard.
Friday. Bruno Mars tickets went on sale and Will and I were very focused on getting us some tickets. SUCCESS! I was seriously floating on cloud 9 I was so stoked that we got tickets. VIP tickets to boot! Had a breakfast brunch for my friend Connie's birthday at Break of Dawn in Lake Forest. Yummy food. KMC group plus one.
Look my delicious salmon with poached eggs. Quite delicious.
By Friday I was finishing up all the last touches for Katelyn's birthday party. I think I did a good job on spreading out all the different things I needed to do in the weeks ahead so I wouldn't have any last minute rushing and stressing. That's never fun. One of the things I did this time around was make tissue paper rose centerpieces. I had seen these online when Katelyn turned one and REALLY wanted to make them but had no time (I was still working at the time!). This time around I was determined. They were supposed to be hanging pomander balls but once I started I was floored by how many roses it took to fill up one of these balls, so I decided to just do half and put them in these little white buckets I got from Target for $1. Each rose is made from a 24 inch strip of crepe paper. I got some cute fabric lace with one side sticky (clearance at Michaels!) and punched out some hearts with my mini Cricut. How cute did they turn out??
That morning Will dropped Katelyn off at Chinese school since he was working from home and I had brunch plans. I had also dropped Tyler off early at my friend Bonnie's so that she could take him to school for me. Why you ask? So Will and I could both be at the computer at 10am when Bruno Mars tickets went on sale! (Yes, I was sitting outside the restaurant at 10am with my laptop and mifi. Ready!). Anyway, Will worked from home that day so that he could pick up some table and chair rentals. With a smaller party this year, I splurged and got a kids table with 10 kid chairs, and only 2 6" tables and 16 chairs. (Tyler's party last year I got 4 tables and 40 chairs!). I even splurged a little more and got the nice white bistro adults chairs instead of the metal samsonite ones. Altogether the rentals was only $60! The kid chairs seemed a little blah so I tried to spruce them up with some beads. Still blah, but a slight improvement I think.
Friday, the kids also got haircuts. Tyler before:
Katelyn was an excited observer, patiently waiting her turn.
After!
Now it's Katelyn's turn! She enjoyed her 'spa' experience.
Video of KK getting her haircut:
Helena even put Katelyn's hair in two french braids. Super cute and I have no idea how to do them. No idea whatsoever. Thankfully my friend Mariam came over that night to hang out while we finished some stuff and she offered to do Katelyn's hair. Lifesaver!
This boggles me. I can solve complex mathematical equations but am clueless about replicating this. Even with 14-year-olds on YouTube trying to teach me through their video tutorials.
She LOVED her braids. Was quite upset that we had to take them out for bath that night.
Saturday was another busy day. It's a busy birthday month! We headed in the morning over to South Pasadena for my friend Heidi's daughter Hailey's 1st birthday. WOW that was a long drive. It was wonderful seeing Heidi - she was one of my bridesmaids! We had a year or so in college where we hung out together all the time with our boyfriends and even had some math and CS classes together.
Mini SOPi reunion! Michelle was just a week away from having her second baby.
They hired this adorable clown for the kids entertainment. Seriously the cutest clown I have ever met, she was so bubbly and cute and personable. Totally not creepy. But we had to leave early to head to another birthday party back in Irvine. I felt guilty since there was another party that day as well down in Aliso Viejo and we just couldn't squeeze it all in.
On the drive back down to Irvine, the kids all took naps. Hit some pretty bad traffic on the 5 and I had all but given up on making it to the party at all. Heidi's party was at 10:30am. Riley's party was at 11am-1pm, with Kids Imagination performing from 1-2pm. I was hoping to get back in time for the performance. We left Heidi's party by noon and got back to Irvine a little after 1pm. The performance had just started - WHEW!! Katelyn loved it. Tyler was groggy from being woken up and kind of grumpy. Boo. He sat with me the whole time.
Video of KIN performing at the birthday party:
We even got in some fun park play time with Katelyn's little friends afterward.
We had dinner at Will's parents place that night.
Saturday night, bedtime. Katelyn's last night as a 2 year old!
Video of KK's last night as a 2-year old:
Sunday morning. GAME DAY. The problem with having a 10am party is that everything has to get done earlier in the day. Tyler's afternoon parties are much more of a relaxing morning since there's more time to prepare. Tried to stay calm, but it started to RAIN while I was picking up the cake and cupcakes! WTH! There was nothing in the forecast about rain? Thank goodness it was mostly heavy sporadic drops. Nothing we couldn't make it through! Here's Mariam doing Katelyn's hair. Will and I were running around setting everything up.
Party photos! Starting with the favors for the 12 girls. $1 pink birdcage pails from Target. These were actually the first things that I purchased for the party and the whole girly-pink party thing kind of came together after that. There were also some heart plastic bracelets, Disney princess notebook and gel pens, bubbles and a mini wand. I threw in some Disney princess stamps and rings too, oh and a jumbo Disney princess pen. Dollar store purchases. I even got these cute mini wands off Amazon. They came out super cute! Punched out some favor tags and printed out Thank You and each girl's name, then attached them to the cardboard holder of the pens. I added a little heart rhinestone under their name and it really added that extra touch. Super cute! Put them on some white trays so that they wouldn't blend into the pink tablecloths.
The dessert table. Made all of these myself! We had mini cheesecake cups with strawberries and blueberries, chocolate covered strawberries, mini fruit tarts, jello cups with strawberry mousse and strawberries, and a fruit bowl of strawberries and grapes. Sense a theme here? Katelyn loves strawberries!
Each table was decorated with a white vintage-y bird cage and porcelain birds (clearance at Michaels!), along with a white framed photo of Katelyn and the tissue rose buckets. I weighed down the buckets with these dollar store glass stones.
Main food table decorations. Same as the others except with mini buckets to hold the utensils and napkins. A little annoyed that the photos don't have the buckets facing the correct way - you can't see the cute hearts on the other side! I got the light pink utensils at the dollar store. Also, I opted for the plastic clear plates instead of the Costco paper ones. They just look nicer!
Activity table for the girls! The buckets had coloring Disney Princess coloring pages with the crayon pencils, as well as baskets with foam stickers and adhesive jewels to decorate each foam crown. The girls were OBSESSED with this table. They wouldn't leave it! By the time we took this picture some of the girls had already put some jewels on their crowns!
Dessert table.
Overall area. Since this was a smaller party, we were able to fit all the tables under the awning. There are already two large wooden picnic tables there (had to get extra large tablecloths for them!) and we fit the 3 other tables there as well. Like the banner that I made from scratch? Super proud of my first banner! The pom-poms I bought off Amazon and Will fluffed them. They were perfect, just enough girliness. I had originally wanted to make a bunch of big pom poms but then I started to feel like they were a little played out. Glad I went with some mini ones.
Princess Katelyn banner with a castle on each end and a heart in the middle (the heart matched the hearts on the buckets).
At 10:15am, Belle arrived. The kids gasped and were so excited. On the adjoining basketball court, we set up a canopy for Belle and had 3 area rugs for the kids to sit on. The canopy we own and we had brought out for shade from the sun. Ironic that we ended up needing it due to the sporadic rain drops! I really liked that we had these rugs for the girls to sit on. Princesses can't sit on the ground!
Hey, they're not even sitting on the rugs! I don't blame them, they wanted to be really close to Belle!
Next up, some princess makeup. I was a little hesitant about this being part of the program, but they assured me that it was really cute on the little kids. Of course Katelyn got to go first. When I saw the makeup they were putting on, I gasped - I couldn't hide it! They drew a blue crown type thing on her forehead, not so bad. But then the eyeshadow and pink blush was a little too much for me to handle.
Katelyn loved the pampering she was getting.
Check out the cheeks. Afterward she stood next to Belle while her friend Kendall got her makeup done. I tried to sneak in and pretend that she had something dirty on her face, and dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue to try to blend that blush in a little bit. No such luck. As soon as she saw that her cheeks weren't pink circles anymore, she protested and insisted that she get more put back on by Belle. Darnit, I tried!
Katelyn hadn't wanted any lipstick on when it was her turn, but after watching Kendall get some she was interested. Here Belle's asking her to pucker up to put on some lipstick.
Tyler ran around riding on his scooter. I didn't want him to go too fast nor put on his helmet so that he wouldn't mess up his hair. He did both and ended up later with CRAZY hair.
Katelyn LOVED checking herself out in the mirror. Such a girl.
My pretty princess!
Isn't her Belle ballgown beautiful? It even has a hoop skirt!
While the rest of the girls were doing their makeup, the other girls headed back to the activity table. They LOVED the adhesive jewels and stickers. They were very focused.
It was lovely to have my friend Mariam there to help out as well. Sometimes things get so hectic when you're hosting a party that it's the little things that really help make a difference - for instance, I didn't have to worry about getting the cupcakes into the little holders that I made or to bring them and the cake out!
Meanwhile the girls were now doing princess training. Lots of super cute twirling and curtsy-ing.
The girls were so excited about the crowns they had decorated that they insisted on wearing them.
At one point Katelyn noticed a bee on the pavement and pointed it out to Belle. Belle responded very appropriately that they should let it fly away home. Haha! I think at one point when they were sitting on the rugs together, Katelyn leaned over and pointed out that Belle's dress was dirty!
Princess waves. Love this one of Katelyn in the front, haha!
Videos of Princess training:
Then to storytime. Katelyn must have felt very special to sit up on Belle's lap.
At the end of the 90 minutes, they gathered all the girls together for the official princess crowning. Their 90 minute package usually comes with goody bags for the girls, but I opted out of that since I was preparing my own (and who knew what kind of junky stuff would be in it!). In it's place, they gave me half off this princess crowning ceremony add-on. It's supposed to be $35 but they only charged me half. Even at half price I still thought it was WAY overpriced! But Katelyn loved the scroll, tiara and princess sash. It was a great way to lead up to Belle leaving. Apparently they usually end with Belle singing happy birthday with everyone with the birthday cake, but at this point the kids still hadn't really even eaten yet.
Showing her princess smile to everyone...
Princess curtsy next...
Tiara time!
Katelyn LOVED her princes sash.
Future beauty queen perhaps?
Official princess crowning scroll...
And then a quick group photo! Of course we never got a photo with all the girls in it.
And then the girls all got to take individual photos with Belle - something I'm sure the parents liked.
Family Belle photo!
After much coaxing and then threatening we got Tyler and his friend Kaden to take a quick photo with Belle as well.
Everyone ate (well most parents had been eating while the girls were doing princess activities). Will's parents had made this delicious red rice dish and rice noodle dish (very fresh!) and we catered some food from Da Luau (spam musubi platter, teriyaki chicken platter and pork katsu platter). And then it was cake time! They turned out super cute! I ordered plain vanilla cupcakes with white whipped topping on top and put them in these cupcake holders I made. Super cute, the holders looked like little crowns and I put little rhinestones on every other rung on the top. On each cupcake I sprinkled these silver/white/pink-ish edible balls, looked like little tinted pearls (SO cute) and then topped each off with a Disney ring. It took me a while to order these rings from Amazon because they kept running out of stock, and I really wanted the rings that were clear instead of those that were multicolored. Picky picky, I know! The cake was vanilla with fresh strawberries and whipped topping. I talked to the baker and showed her a photo of what I wanted - little pink dots to match the pink pearls on the cupcake. I picked up the cute tiara from Costume Express down in Lake Forest (I was checking out the 99 cent store a few days before the party for last minute items). Super cute huh! I didn't want writing on the cake so she had me bring in the cake stand ahead of time so she could write Katelyn's name on it. It came out cute, right? I think so!
Thank you to my lovely friend Mariam who helped bring out the cupcakes and cake, and doing Katelyn's hair! Hosting is hectic enough as it is, it was nice to have one less thing to worry about.
Blowing out the birthday candles. That was also part of why I wanted a cake and not just cupcakes - must have something to blow out candles on. Look at Katelyn's friend Kylee trying to sneak in some air blowing. Hmmmm. Next time we'll need to make sure there aren't any friends too close to the cake! Haha!
Look, we're trying to squeeze Tyler into the picture but Kylee is pretty adamant that she wants to be there. Haha!
Family photo!
The little girls LOVED the cupcakes, they picked out which princess ring they liked. Super adorable.
Great way to end the party: handing out the little favors! These little girls had taken off their princess dresses, I promise they weren't wearing sweats the whole time. :)
Can't have a birthday for Katelyn without her favorite Uncle Stacy!
Doesn't Katelyn look ridiculously huge in this photo with her friend Kayla? They are like 4 months apart.
Back home, after naps, Tyler helped Katelyn open her presents. By "open" I mean unwrap, not actually open. Haha! Since we really limited the invitees this year, I hope Katelyn won't look back and be resentful that Tyler had these huge 20+ kid parties and she didn't get to have that. Hopefully she'll see all the work and details I put in for her princess party, and she'll appreciate that instead of not having so many presents. Hopefully.
Her choice of the one present to unwrap that day? A toy vacuum cleaner. SHE LOVED IT. I am constantly vacuuming and it is hilarious when she runs up next to me with her toy one and pretends to vacuum along with me. Why oh why doesn't it actually vacuum?? Wouldn't that be amazing and actually useful?
Video of KK and her little vacuum:
Happy 3rd birthday to my wonderful princess, I love you so much Katelyn - you bring me so much joy and happiness. You make me smile and giggle with all the silly things you do. I am so lucky to be your mommy! You have such a wonderful personality and you love to laugh and enjoy life. Lately you have become so excited with learning your letters and pointing out numbers - you are so excited to show me what you learn everyday! Hopefully now that you are three, you'll be better able to express yourself and your emotions. Love you!
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