A Simple Birthday Party...

I've never been one to go "all out" for my kids' birthday parties. I'd love to be that mom who throws elaborate parties every year, but I learned long ago that simpler is better (especially when 3 of your 5 kids' birthdays are within 1 week of eachother!)

For my daughter's birthday this year I made her invitations first. I didn't have a 'theme' in mind. I just made the invites based on my mood for the day. This is what I came up with.

After the invitations were finished and passed out, I decided to use 'flowers' as a theme. I found a cute fry box idea here and made some for the treat bags. (I ended up using a bigger fry box template from here). I decorated them the same as the invites, threw in some candy, and wrapped them in cellophane bags. They turned out pretty cute, and the kids loved them!

Since I was going with 'flowers', I decided to have atleast one game that went with the theme. I made this flower using my scrapbook paper scraps and we played "pin the leaf on the flower stem" (I know, it's not a great title, but I don't know what else to call it!). BTW...the little hearts weren't really on the leaves...I just added them to block out the kids' names.

For the cake I made a double layer 9" round cake and frosted it with basic buttercream frosting. Then we (my girls and I) got out my flower cookie cutters and used them as a template for the flowers on the cake. We pressed the cookie cutters in where we wanted them, then filled in the spots with colored frosting. My girls all got to fill in some flowers and had a blast! I think eating the extra frosting may have been the best part of their day!
Again, the hearts were used to block my daughter's name.

Although it was simple, the birthday girl had a great time! In my book, that's all that really matters anyway!