Week of Birthdays....

Jules here-

March is the busiest month of birthdays in my family: Mom-mom & Ems, Aunt Caryn's, and then both girls within 5 days of each other.... lots and lots of cake.....  Of course, we used our party-planning tips to create a fun, budget-friendly, and delicious party!  Grace and Lissie agreed on a mermaid/under-the-sea party about a month ago, so we began cutting out fish, seaweed and more to decorate the house...

Grace made a paper chain with the pattern: 10 blues, 3 whites; this way it would like like white-capped waves in the background!  Grace was dying for a pinata, but I was not daring enough to attempt one-- and I could not believe how pricey they could get! So we settled on a pin-the-crown-on-the-mermaid-princess game....

Can you tell it's homemade? :) The girls dot-painted it....

We typically host our parties at a brunch-time as it works best for naps; my mother and sister helped out with the main dishes of different salads (chicken, shrimp & tuna).  Delicious in croissants!! We also had homemade hummus (much cheaper than store-bought).  I found some pinterest-inspiration for this one:

 As for the cake, I surprised them with a sandcastle cake (with graham cracker crumbs & ice cream cones) and mermaid-tail cupcakes.  They tasted great and the girls were thrilled!

I highly recommend graham-cracker crumbs-- easy to make a cake when you don't have to make it perfectly smooth!!

The party was a success: the girls had so much fun decorating and planning; the family was able to get together; and we all gained five pounds.

Easy Rule #329810- If you can make your kids happy without spending too much- it's worth it.