The Long Awaited B'day Pics!

Evan and the Bean in their b'day outfits, polka dot w/ cupcake applique.

Yes, they are reversible, so the other side is green windowpane check w/ pumpkin applique

The cake, done in colors to match their polka dot outfits. They also had matching small round cakes to destroy themselves.

The Bean pummelling her cake w/ her hat. She ate it at first, but mostly played w/ it and beat it to death w/ her hat. :) We made the hats also - very easy. You can't see it in this picture, but I also made them matching bibs w/ the cupcake applique.

The Bean opening her presents...this is one of the few pics we got of her opening gifts b/c she cared more about the rocks surrounding the pavillion.

Ok, so for a rundown of the b'day: We had Evan's and the Bean's b'days at the city park in Hokes Bluff, near where I grew up and close to my brother and sister-in-law's house. We went very low-key on the decorations w/ only a polka dot tablecloth on the cake table and balloons tied on that table, matching polka dot napkins, etc. We ate cake and opened presents - pretty simple. There were only 2 other kids there, so we didn't do party favors either. The only things creative about the party were their outfits and hats! The party went great, and the only thing that went wrong was the Great Balloon Debacle.

The Great Balloon Debacle

So, my sister-in-law took a pack of balloons to the party store near her house and told them to blow up 20 of them. We thought that would be plenty. When we picked them up about and hour and a half b/f the party, we realized they were the wrong size balloons. My sister-in-law had accidentally bought a pack of tiny balloons instead of normal size, so neither of us were pleased w/ them. But they were already paid for, so we decided just to use them anyway. Well since they were so small, we decided to blow up the rest of the pack (30 balloons) ourselves and tape them to the tables. We had not planned on doing this timewise, but thought we'd be fine. So we go to her house and blow up the balloons. We took the bunch of already blown up balloons inside w/ us so they wouldn't get too hot and pop in the car. Well, we finished up and started to load up the car w/ balloons to head over to the park to set up about an hour b/f the party. Now, as an important side note, the door handle was broken off on my sister-in-law's car so that they had to roll down the window to get in and out of the car. As I was putting the bunch of balloons in the car, I didn't notice that the window was still down. So what happened to our tiny, but only, bunch of balloons? It was sucked out of the window into oblivion!! And yes, it was my all my fault. So after regaining our composure (my sister-in-law and I were laughing hysterically), I said we should go get some more balloons...I thought we'd have time. Long story short, we ended up having to call somebody else to go pick up the new balloons b/c we ran out of time taping all the other ones to the tables. And when we finally did get the new gorgeous large size balloons, they started popping b/c we tried to tie them to the concrete columns instead of the tables. So here's what I learned for the next b'day:

1) Always bring more than 2 people to set up.

2) Allow at least 30 minutes more than you think you'll need.

3) Check the size of the balloons on the pkg b/f you buy them.

4) Make sure the window isn't rolled down b/f putting balloons in a car.

and 5) Don't try to do something at the last minute that you hadn't planned on!

And we were trying to be simple!! Imagine if we'd planned something more involved!! Any of ya'll have any b'day debacles to share?