Wordless Wednesday

The Party Mama's 2nd Annual EGG-citing Easter Party!

Happy Easter!! I hope you have had a wonderful weekend celebrating with your little bunnies.

Mother Nature and I were not on speaking terms last week and we had to move our 2nd Annual EGG-citing Easter Party to Good Friday due to rain. Our raindate ended up being a beautiful Spring day and the party was a huge success. Due to the generosity of the people attending and companies donating their time, products and services, we raised just over $1500 for Credit Valley Hospital's chemo and radiation department. In an effort to give back to the community, I like to incorporate a fundraising element at all the large Party Mama parties. This year, I decided to donate all proceeds in honour of my amazing friend Monika MacLellan. Monika sadly lost her long and courageous battle with cancer and was one of the most generous and giving people I have ever known.

Here are a few favourite pictures from the party...

  

Egg hunt this way!

A very special thank you to all the volunteers that helped stuff over 2000 eggs and helped with other party prep ahead of time, who came early to set up and stayed late to clean up, made coffee runs to Timmie's, checked people in at the welcome table and sold raffle tickets for me. With everyone's help, I was even able to participate in the egg hunt with my kiddies and to sit and enjoy the music with them as well! It was so very appreciated!

My sweet Emma with her Grammy. Both kiddies' shirts came from Xander's World on Etsy. Danielle is amazing to work with and her shirts are just adorable!

Kathy from A Sweet Slice and For the Love of Cupcakes and Christine from MollyCake. So thankful to have them both back for this party and for donating all their proceeds to Credit Valley Hospital (and for baking twice, due to the cancellation!).

We had lots of prizes donated for our raffle for CVH!

The little bunnies had a lot to do at the party! Each was assigned a colour and collected 10 eggs of that colour. There were also 25 special prize eggs to be found to keep the hunt challenging, so many families went home with some pretty cool prizes! There were two craft tables - a simple foam egg frame for the smallest bunnies and ceramic eggs from Art Glazed Over for the older ones to paint. There is also a great playground to play at and little nature trails to explore. Hidden Valley Park really is Burlington's little hidden gem. :)

Before I decided to make this event 100% non-profit, I had booked TURKEY Rhubarb to perform at the party. When I told them about the changes I had made, they very nicely waived their performance fee so there would be more money put towards the cause. A big, BIG thank you to Dale, Gerry and Paul.

The kids really enjoyed the show!

Teia enjoying a silly action song!

I cannot thank everyone enough for contributing to this party. Working on this was a good distraction from grieving and I am so happy that we exceeded my original fundraising goal of $1000. As I tried to explain what all the money was going to be used for to my kiddies (in an age appropriate way), my five year old said to me, "Gramma Monika would like that. I think it's a good idea to help people that are sick". I couldn't agree more, baby girl.

The list of people that donated and helped with this party is long, but please take a few minutes to check out the links below. There are some very kind and giving people listed there. :)

Art Glazed Over
Avon (Shannon Staton)
Britton Orthodontics
Cute Clips
DBODZ Fitness
Epicure (Rachel Travis)
Jac & Jill Designs
LEWS Lens - Children's Birthday Party Photographer
Purely Esthetics
Purely Polished Green Cleaning & Organizing
MollyCake
Natural Care Clinic
Ryker's Toy Chest
Second Wind Conditioning
TURKEY Rhubarb

Nate's Star Wars birthday party in a galaxy (not so) far, far away...

Wondering if I should actually admit that I've NEVER seen a Star Wars movie? Maybe not...but I still had SO much fun helping with this party!

The invite...

Nathan's mommy is one creative mama and had some pretty fun themed party food for the kiddies. I made the food tent cards to go with each food item. :)

Chewbacca Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Jabba Hut (get it?) ;)

Yoda Soda

Death Star (carved by Nathan's daddy)

Light sabres

This was my favourite part! I designed these certificates for each of the guests. The girls had Princess Leia on theirs and the boys had Luke Skywalker (I really hope I'm getting these names right! lol!).

This is my favourite Party Mama thank you card design because it includes pictures of the party and a box to personalize it with your own note.

Happy 5th birthday Nathan! May the force be with you!!

See....I picked up on some of the lingo! ;)

Our March Break "Staycation"

Both the kiddies are back at school today (one in JK and one in preschool). We didn't go away anywhere last week and Daddy had to work, but it was still lovely. I love not having a schedule. Amazing weather for most of the week didn't hurt either!
 
Here's a few pictures that highlighted our week.


Outdoor playdate with our buddies Lylah, Daisy and Jayde.



Park playdate

Shopping for Easter eggs for The Party Mama's 2nd Annual Easter Party

During a little hike, my daughter said, "Mommy, that's not nature! Why would someone throw their broken toys away here?".

We decided to carry it back with us to throw it away properly. :)

One rainy morning = craft day!

The kiddies getting an early start on Daddy's frame for his birthday present.

The house seems too quiet this afternoon. I probably should go clean up the craft glitter and markers. It was a great week and if the countdown to returning to teaching in September full-time wasn't on, I would be wishing for summer to come sooner!

Emma's Enchanted Fairy Party

This was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. :)

My sweet baby girl turned five in January. FIVE. No matter how much we tell them not to, they just keep growing up, don't they?

Emma choose a princess tea party theme last year and wanted another princess to come this year. When I suggested she should choose a new theme, she quickly came up with the idea of a fairy party so Tinkerbell could come. Both Tinkerbell and Sleeping Beauty magically appear at our house from Fantasy Fables, so my challenge was to make the fairy party a little different from last year's party (although I'm pretty sure I am the only one concerned about that!).


The invitation - I was excited to use pictures from a fairy festival we went to this past summer. I just love this clip art set (by JW Illustrations). I backed up the invitation of green glittery cardstock, which came out really pretty!

Emma and I picked this theme and started planning this party a long time ago, so after Halloween I stocked up on fairy wings! The girls looked so sweet dancing around in them. After Christmas had past, I shopped the sales again and bought sparkly foilage and ribbons and made all the girls fairy crowns. They also decorated fairy wands by choosing their own ribbons.

I really wanted a "whimsical, garden party" feel to the party, which was a bit of a challenge with her birthday being in January. A challenge, but not impossible!


The centrepiece - a mixture of flowers and greenery with the amazing individual cakes made by MollyCake!



The little details on the cakes were just perfect! Contact me if you live in my area and would ever like to borrow the toppers.  

Personalized place settings.

Cutlery wraps with all the Disney fairies.

The spread...

Fairy bread and rainbow fruit skewers.

Heart shaped sugar cookies

Custom bottle wraps (have I mentioned how much I loved this clipart set?). :)

After the girls had a little dance party and some fairy snacks, they waited patiently for Tinkerbell to arrive. I cannot recommend Fantasy Fables enough. It's like watching a Disney princess walk out of a storybook....they are absolutely enchanting. 

Tinkerbell got a very warm reception! She did such a great job at including all the girls, but also highlighting the special birthday girl as well. Emma just stared in amazement, but was a little less shy than when she had her first princess party.

I loved watching the girls flutter around with their wings and fairy crowns. :)

Tinkerbell was a huge hit and entertained the girls with her story, songs and dancing. She also did their nails and make-up. They were captivated. 



After Tinkerbell left, the girls had their mini fairy cakes (with leftovers to take home!). They also took home their wands, crowns and wings, so we kept the loot very simple. A single pink rose with a thank you tag from the birthday girl.

Tinkerbell was kind enough to pose with each little fairy. I was able to add their picture to these cute frame magnets that I found and included them with their thank you card.

Mackenzie and Tink

I love this thank you card layout with pictures from the party. You can also write a hand written note, which adds another personal touch.

The party went so well and Emma is still talking about it. She has already suggested Cinderella could come to her next party....and we could invite boys this time to make it "different". lol

A very big thank you to my friend Katie of Natural Attraction Photography for capturing these beautiful photos for me. Thank you also to my mom and sister who came early to help with the finishing touches and my friends Alicia and Teresa, who got roped into helping by arriving on the early side! xo

Dealing with grief

A thoughtful friend emailed me this week to see how I am doing and asked me if I found it strange how things continue like normal, when everything is different. That's exactly how I feel right now. Losing such a close friend recently devastated me...the first week after was a blur, the second week I only cried a couple times a day and now it's moments here and there that catch me off guard. It's really a roller coaster of emotions with a little bit of guilt thrown in (yes, I'm Catholic. lol) over getting up everyday and going to playdates, being silly with the kids, laughing with a girlfriend, enjoying more time with my hubby, getting back to the gym. It seems so wrong to laugh and be happy when at the same time I'm so incredibly sad. She was sick for so long, but nothing prepared me for what a loss this would be in my life. I miss her every single day.

The last time I took Monika to Credit Valley Hospital, she was given the very difficult news that they were discontinuing her chemo treatments and that making her as comfortable as possible was all they could do at this point. After the oncologist left the room, the first comment she made to me was, "That must have been so hard for him to tell me such bad news. We've known each other for so many years. It must be so hard being a doctor sometimes". Later that evening, she emailed me to ask if I was okay and to apologize for having to sit through such a tough appointment. That truly shows how much she cared about everyone around her, even during the most difficult and scariest times. Never have I met someone so thoughtful, generous and with such a positive outlook on life, despite what was thrown at her.

So for me, the next stage of grief is to try to keep going with everyday life, but to also honour her by living my life like she did. Focusing on the positive things and people in my life and loving my friends and family fiercely and with all my heart. There are many tears left to cry (my keyboard is a mess right now), but there's also a lot of love to give too. I know Monika would have wanted it that way.

Taken at Elm Hurst Inn & Country Spa - one of our favourite getaways