Olive's Birthday Favorites

Olive had a specific vision for her birthday party this year - cute mice, pink and red.  There aren't many options for decor that matches her criteria so we had to DIY her party.  That's my kind of challenge. We found the cutest gingham stuff at Dollar Tree, vintage mice, HomeGoods and Amazon, too.  Everything turned out really cute!  We celebrated with her friends, my family, Kevin's family and then her actual birthday.

My mom has always loved mice so she gifted Olive her mouse collection.

These sweet cousins are all the same age for a few weeks every year.

Kevin grilled and my mom made fried ice cream for dessert.

All of her favorite things in one picture.

A yes day to all of her favorite places.

She needed a shark costume for the cats.  She loved it.  They did not.

We had so much fun celebrating our favorite girl.

Her BFFs.

I made bundt cakes for one of her parties.  They turned out so pretty and delicious.

This strawberry vase is one of my favorites!

She got lots of new Jellycats.

A really cool new bookshelf for her room.

Happy 13th birthday, Olive!  We sure do love you!

And that's a wrap on our March, April, May kid birthday season at our house!  So fun!  So busy!

I'm taking the next week or two off of blogging to enjoy some extra time with my family this Summer!  I'll check back in around the middle of June.  Thanks for being here!

13 Favorites

Happy 13th Birthday, Olive!  She's been the easiest, best first born.  We traveled and moved SO much when she was little and she was always just happy to be along for the ride.  

I thought I'd celebrate her by writing out our 13 favorite things about Olive.

1. She's always been decisive, confident and knows what she wants.  She is okay doing her own thing and might just make you Google slide presentation when she really wants to get your attention.

2. She is a very hard worker.  She loves her teachers, loves school and works so hard to do her best in every class.  We're so happy with her effort and drive to do her best always.  She manages herself, her school work and her schedule so well.

3. Olive loves to go to concerts with me. She researches the set list ahead of time, makes us a playlist to prep for the concert and then we have the best time enjoying concerts together.  She has a fun concert tee collection.

4. Pasta has always been her favorite food.  She's a salty snacker so goldfish, Olives, popcorn and such are always her favorites.

5. She loves to host and party plan.  She gathers her friends at holidays, arranges gift exchanges and knows that if she loops me into the planning that I'll be happy to host her friends.  Her group of friends has been close for years so it's fun to see them sticking together.

6. Olive is crafty.  She likes to learn new crafts and then make the crafts for friends and family.  She's working on key chains, bedazzling things and knotting fleece blankets right now.

7. She is the best babysitter.  She is always happy to babysit when I ask and she takes great care of her brothers.

8. Olive has loved Jellycats since she was a newborn.  Her first stuffed animal was a bunny named Bun Bun and while Jellycats are making a comeback, Olive has loved them for 13 years.  It makes me smile to still see them on her birthday wish list now.

9. She throws a crazy good football, watches football, has a favorite team and understands the game of football well enough to do a presentation on it at school with a guy in her class.  Maybe this will be the year that we go to a college football game in the Fall?

10. Reading is her jam.  She got a cool new bookshelf for her room for her birthay and is filling it with her favorite authors.  Sprayed edge books.  Pretty covers.  She's going to have such a fun little library.

11. Olive has her own font.  She has combined print and cursive to make her own very distinct handwriting.  I love that she's practiced and come up with a signature handwriting.

12. She adores cats, bracelets, earrings, a cute top and Vera Bradley bags.  You can find her playing volleyball with her friends or LOLing on group calls with her buddies.

13. Her favorite days are when she gets to spend alone time with her parents.  Her goal this year is to grow taller than her mom!  We shall see.

Happy Birthday, Olive!  We're so proud of you!

Olive Celebrating with Friends

Olive turns 13 at the end of the month. I can hardly believe it.  She found a date that worked for all of her friends and we planned the perfect sleepover to celebrate her a little early.  

Pasta bar, volleyball, crafts, candy, treats and a fun night together.

Olive and I made to do list of tasks, the menu and the activities.  Then we got busy.  She is old enough to be really helpful which was wonderful because I worked all day and came home to help her throw a party.  She reqeusted pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and cookie bars.  Her colors are pink and red with some cute mice decorations.

We ran by Dollar Tree to grab all the blue candies we could find.

She set the table.  I added the bows.

I got home at 3:30.  The girls arrived at 5:30.  We did one pasta, one sauce, meat, two salads and sour dough bread.  The girls loved it.

Everything was so sweet.

I'm always excited to host.

The gift giving was one of my favorite parts.  Each girl hand picked things they knew Olive would love.  They had stories behind their gifts and plenty of things with inside, friends only jokes.  Olive felt so loved.

Volleyball in the street, side walk chalk, a walk and chatting with neighbors. I'm so thankful Olive has such sweet friends.  Some of them were the very first friends she made in 3rd grade when we moved to Evansville.

Olive planned a really fun craft - name key chains, rubber duck key chains and a Fuggler for each girl.  I helped a little and then they planned and beaded out their own key chains.  They have big plans for matching key chains the last week of school.

Hosting the girls is always a good time!  Everyone went to bed early - May seems to be wearing us all out and we had an assortement of cereals for breakfast.

Olive's 12th Birthday Recap

Olive turned 12 last week and we had the best time celebrating her with family and friends.  She made her own invitations that were so cute.  She wanted them to be pink and blue with bows and teddy bears.  Mission accomplished.  She customized the same invitation to work for my family, Kevin's family and her friends.  Then I texted it out to everyone to invite them.  We celebrated with her favorite foods, favorite activities and enjoyed the week with our favorite girl.

She requested bundt cakes and gummy bears for dessert!

We celebrated with Kevin's family first.  Olive was so ecited to get a GIANT Squishmallow.

The sweetest great grandmas + Olive.

Bundt Cakes and cookie bars for my family.

We gathered all the bear treats we could find for treat bags - Teddy Grahams and two kinds of gummy bears.

Olive helped me make the balloon garlands.  It goes so much faster when you've got an assistant to blow up all the balloons!  We made bows out of plastic table cloths, too.

My sister + niece made Olive the cutest teddy bear for her room.

Leo was there and was not interested in joining us for a picture.

These cute cousins are all 12 until July.

We celebrated her on her real birthday.  The cats loved to help her.

Could this mean they'd all be friends one day??  Maybe they'll bond over their love of wrapping paper.

After a slow morning at home, I surprised Olive with a favorite day.  I texted her one event at a time and she was surprised to end up at all of her favorite spots.

Pick out a new Squishmallow!

The brothers were troopers.

She picked Crumbl for her birthday dessert.

I always fall down a rabbit hole of baby pictures on the kid's birthdays.  It seems like just yesterday that one year old Olive was getting her pictures taken in Arkansas.

She's officially 12!  We loved getting a variety box of Crumbl cookies to try.

We celebrated a few days later with a best friend sleepover!  Lots of volleyball, pizza, gelato, gifts, crafts and skin care into the wee hours of the morning.

BFFs.

It was so fun seeing what all of the girls picked out for Olive.

We put together really fun favor bags for the girls.  I'll do a recap of them soon, but just know there were teddy bears, Tree Hut sugar scrubs, bows and more inside.

We did a craft.  Stay tuned for a fun teen tutorial.

I made a big breakfast of eggs, fruit, dinosaur and car waffles for everyone.

The table looked so cute.  Mr. Mittens agreed.

She loved going through all of her friend gifts and debriefing about her friend party the day after.

And that's a wrap on Spring birthday season at our house!  Whew!  3 kid birthdays in March, April and May is so fun and so exhausting.  We loved celebrating Olive with everyone that loves her.