THE Birthday Party

We have talked about doing a joint birthday party since Patrick was born 13 months after Annabelle, but the 1st birthday milestone and the "special" birthday we threw for both of them at 2, stopped us from the party combo until this year...  

All in all I think it was a success.  Minus the hot 95 degree day and us being in a park.  We decided to do a park party because all of the other birthday parties have been at our home and we thought this would be an easier venue for clean up.  We did not take into account that we would have to pack EVERYTHING to make it function like a party from home.  The park is great, one of our local faves, and we rented a small section next to the playground that has a grill and six picnic tables.

We have been hooked on ordering our invites from Etsy.com and printing the digital files that we buy for $15.  Here is this year's invite with pictures of Annabelle and Patrick at the park.

We kept it simple and served typical BBQ fare.  We even pre-cooked the burgers at our house and then just warmed the up on the grill which worked out pretty well.  I did get a few ideas from pinterest to make the food set up a little more fun.

We put up a pinata, put out a parachute and enlisted Matt's sister Megan to paint faces (all supplies ordered through Amazon Smile Prime- my best go to!).  Throw in the kids besties and voila!  Party in the park and two birthdays celebrated well!  Smeared cake on faces and lots of hugs makes this momma smile!