Alex's Fairy Forest

We celebrated Alex's 3rd birthday yesterday with a Fairy Forest Party on her actual birthday! I started off my morning at 6am with a quick shower and a trip to the donut shop for her breakfast tradition! A chocolate sprinkle donut. This year we included chocolate milk! She gave both 2 thumbs up! She ended up eating about 3 bites of her donut before Cooper swiped it and had 2 sips of her chocolate milk before she decided she was over it!

With Alex's help, we came up with the theme for her party in January! I am all about a lengthy planning time so I can take my time to find exactly what I want for the party instead of rushing around at the last minute! Alex received a beautiful fairy pop up book from my best friends mom and I immediately knew I wanted to go the traditional fairy route instead of Tinkerbell.

I found the perfect invites on Etsy.

We wrapped up fairy wings and tutus and delivered them to each girl attending the party. Alex selected the colors. She chose purple for her friends and pink for herself.

My sweet little fairy on her birthday!

My biggest task was creating the fairy forest. I knew in my mind exactly what I wanted it to look like, but creating it was the hard part. I spent the months prior to the party cutting out all of the paper good (cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, Happy Birthday Alex pendants, Alex's Fairy Forest pendant and the animals around the forest). The week before the party I created the forest. My parents came in town Thursday night and my mom helped with all of the finishing touches. Josh suggested we use some astro turf we had in the attic for the forest floor. I LOVED the way it finished the look. We had so much fun working on every last detail!

We had a kid height table and kids chairs for the girls. Each place was set with a craft to start with. The table centerpiece was edible. We made marshmallow kabobs and fairy wands that were pink chocolate dipped pretzels.

Each girl had bracelets, rings and a wand set out for them as well.

I made the little cone shaped tree to match the topiaries on the food table.

The food table, before the food was set out. I re purposed the topiaries from Alex's baby shower to match the theme and color. The book on the left was our inspiration for the party.

The only picture I have with the food on the table is actually cropped in from a different picture so it isn't the best! The kids food included Magical Fairy Wands (fruit kabobs), Fairy Garden Veggies (carrots, celery and tomatoes with ranch), Snail Sandwiches (ham and cheese roll ups and pb&J roll ups), Chocolate Kissed Fairy Berries (chocolate covered strawberries), Fruity Fairy Flowers (tarts filled with yogurt, blueberries and raspberries) and Fairy Fizz (sparkling cherry limeade and strawberry lemonade).

Each item had it's own little sign I created.

The inspiration along with a close up of a topiary.

As each girl arrived, they picked a seat and started working on decorating a fairy house. I painted them pink and added a pink and green ribbon. Each girl received a little bucket of jewels to glue on to the house.

When they were finished decorating them, I placed them on a bag with their name. They used the bag later to take home their fairy house, wand, bracelets and wings. While they were decorating their houses, the girls snacked on the fairy wands and marshmallow centerpieces.

One by one, the girls were taken to the face painter while the others worked on their houses. Every girl ended up having her face painted and a few went back for painted bracelets!

Alex loves to have her face painted anytime she can so we wanted to make sure to incorporate it into her birthday party!

Alex had so much fun opening her presents.

Since we celebrate Alex's birthday 3 different times, we try to change up the cake/dessert each time. We ordered cupcakes and I made wrappers and toppers to personalize them.

When the girls we done with cupcakes and ice cream they all played around. Alex gave Chandler a ride on her new tricycle.

Before the fairies left, we tried for a group picture!

(left to right: Ina, Alex, Abby, Chandler, Helen and Carson)

Her birthday party was soo much work, but soo worth it! I loved seeing Alex's face light up every time she saw a new detail of the party coming together. My mom was the biggest help setting everything up and making all the beautiful bows that were tied to anything that stood still! Josh was a champ cleaning the house and doing yard work while we worked on the food. My sweet Dad did pretty much anything we asked from putting together gifts to running to the store for stuff we forgot! Terri and Ray were key in keeping Alex and Cooper occupied the morning of the party!