birthday party

Ford’s First Birthday

July 7, 2020

Ford is ONE! When I first started thinking about Ford’s first birthday, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do for it, given that we are in the middle of a pandemic. While we were sheltering in place, our neighborhood had a shaved ice truck come, where you could grab a shaved ice and keep social distance. I ran over during the boys’ nap time to grab one for the boys and it was so good! I decided that having a shaved ice truck would be the perfect way to do a fruit themed, drive-by/walk-by/ride-by party!

At the end of the day, I was so happy that we decided to have a party and to to get to celebrate Ford’s big day with family and friends! Everyone seemed to keep a safe social distance and we enjoyed seeing so many people we have missed so much! And the birthday boy had the best time of all.

Invitation/Menu

We have been following Paper & Play on Instagram for a long time! We love her beautiful watercolor invitations, stationary, etc and I reached out to see if she could help me create an invitation that coordinated with this adorable fruit outfit. Oh my gosh, they were just perfect! I wanted a very sweet invitation for Ford’s first birthday party and Shannon really just knocked it out of the park!

Shannon also created an adorable menu sign for the shaved ice truck. I love how she tied together the scallops of the shaved ice truck and the fruit print from the bubble and invitations. I highly recommend her if you need an invitation or stationary! She was great to work with!

Venue

The party was in our front yard. Since it was a drive-by/walk-by/ride-by party we left it open to whether people wanted to stick around or not. We had socially distant picnic tables, single use drinks and everyone helped themselves to the shaved ice truck!

Food/Drinks

Snow Baby Ice is the shaved ice truck we booked for Ford’s party. We had been introduced to Snow Baby in early May in our neighborhood and thought it was the perfect idea for Ford’s party!

For one, Snow Baby does not use any high fructose sugar, artificial flavors or sugar additives. The shaved ice is thinly shaved ice sheets, topped with organic fruit, dark chocolate or organic cookie crumbles. You can also top with sweet milk or chocolate drizzle. They’re all so good!!

We also decided to serve “Snow Baby After Dark” which is alchohol infused shaved ice. We served Key Lime margarita and pineapple rum. Both were delicious but we especially loved the pineapple rum!

Ford and William loved the vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, Henry loved chocolate with oreo crumbles and the adults all loved the Snow Baby After Dark flavors!

It was such a fun atmopshere with the shaved ice truck and Chrissy did such a great job at the party! She was also so helpful when we were trying to figure out our menu and gave us lots of good tips!

Tip: Snow Baby also has a location in Lakewood!

Cups/Napkins

We served the Snow Baby shaved ice in these custom “Ford is One” cups along with custom napkins from Sequins and Lipstick. Tammy is so easy to work with and she always comes up with great ideas! We continued the fruit theme with these cups and napkins.

Lighting

Because the party was outdoors, we decided to go big for decorations. We used Alpha Lit for the “Ford is One” marquee sign and it was adorable!! It really made an impact outside and was the perfect backdrop for singing Happy Birthday and while Ford ate his cake- which he finally decided he loved after a little coaxing from his brothers.

Balloons

It’s incredible what you can do with balloons these days! We used Lushra to do a 10 ft “1” in front of the house. It was so cute and Ford loved it. We also used a DIY balloon garland from Lushra to drape the Alpha Lit marquee sign. It was really straightforward to put together – just be sure to watch the Youtube video first. That really helped simplify what to do! PS: You can use code BISHOPANDHOLLAND for 10% off all DIY kits!

Flowers

Something Pretty Floral really brought my vision to life. I sent them some inspiration and told them that I was looking for some colorful, summer floral arrangements with fruit in them. They turned out so cute! The flowers were so colorful and the fruit filled vases added the perfect touch.

Cake

Since we were serving shaved ice, and since we were in the middle of the Covid pandemic, we didn’t serve cake to our guests. But we still wanted Ford to have a smash cake and also cake for the family to have after the party. Our go-to for birthday cakes is pretty much always Whole Foods. The bakery did a simple cake with sprinkles for the smash cake and a triple layer white cake/white icing for the family cake. It was delicious and we feel like we can trust Whole Foods to use the best ingredients.

What the Boys Wore

As part of their Summer collection, Dondolo came out with the sweetest summertime fruit print. Dondolo has the some of the highest quality, children’s clothing with such great attention to detail. Plus they are so wearable and wash up well too. The fruit print of Ford’s bubble provided major inspiration for his first birthday and was perfect for our fruit-themed party. This is the precious bubble he wore and the older boys wore these matching short sets.

Cheers,

Stia, Jean and Katherine

Photos by: StudiOrange

Henry’s Pony Birthday Party

October 1, 2019

toddler boy taking bite out of birthday cake

Happy Birthday Henry! We had the best time celebrating Henry’s Second birthday at Play Street. We invited all of his friends and family and it was so special celebrating with the birthday boy. Most importantly Henry had the best time!

Invitations

In the past, we’ve ordered the boys’ birthday party inviations from Love Lucy, so we were so sad to hear that Lucy decided to take a break from doing invitations (she just had her fourth baby!). We knew we would have to find someone to do the invitations for Henry’s birthday party. I stumbled upon Bryna Cumplido events and loved her invitations. We did a custom design for Henry’s pony party invitation and we are just so happy about the way they turned out. The pony invitation is now available for purchase in her shop. We ended up having her design the invitation for my grandmother’s 80th birthday, Ford’s Sip & See and the boys’ Pumpkin Party!

pony birthday party invitation and decorations

Venue

Henry loves Play Street Museum, so it seemed natural to do his Second Birthday party indoors (it is September in Texas) at his favorite play place. Since our theme was a pony party, we decided that Play Street McKinney was the perfect spot – it’s theme is “on the farm”. The kids loved playing in the barn, on the truck and hearing the cow say “Moo.” One of my favorite parts of having a party at Play Street is how great the staff is. You are able to set-up 30 minutes before your party and the staff is so helpful. They guide the party – inviting the kids in to play, helping direct everyone over for food and cake, and then guide everyone out when the party is over. It’s seamless and they have it down to an art!

Food/Drinks

Henry’s party started at 11:30, so we decided to provide lunch. One of his favorite foods is pizza, so of course that is what we served! Pizza, cupcakes, juice boxes and water made for a quick lunch so the kids could get back to playing!

two toddler boys taking bites out of birthday cake

Decor

Everything is as cute as can be at Play Street, but it’s always fun to go all out for a party theme. The cake/food area is a clean slate, so we had a lot of fun coming up with a plan to decorate! We worked with Float Balloon Bar to create the perfect balloon garland – horse included! We also had two large balloons – one to greet everyone and one by the food. Our invitation designer Bryna worked with us to create a banner, cake topper, cupcake toppers and welcome sign – it all matched the invitations!

three women and a baby at birthday party

What the Boys Wore

We found these adorable pony outfits at Dondolo last winter and we are so glad we bought them then! They wore the cutest red cowboy boots and these cowboy hats that were passed out as party favors to all the kids!

Cheers,

Stia, Jean and Katherine

airplane birthday party

January 22, 2018

|the whole b&h family|

Happy Monday! We are so excited to share all the details of William’s 2nd Birthday party today. We decided to go with an airplane theme because 1) He is OBSESSED with airplanes/airport/traveling in general and 2) Play Street Allen has an “On the Go” theme – complete with a kid-sized airplane! To say he had fun is an understatement. He had friends from school, church and some of our college friends’ kids there. Plus we had so much family come into town to celebrate his birthday. What a blessing to have so many to love and celebrate William on his special day! All the details are linked below, but let us know if you have any other questions, or if we missed anything!

|the cutest invites from Love Lucy Design|

|pilot william|

|celebrating our birthday boy|

|the pilot|

Invitations

One of the most difficult things about the airplane theme party was finding airplane theme invitations! When we asked, so many of you were helpful with suggestions for stationary shops that you have used for your kids’ birthday parties. We ended up working with Love Lucy Designs. Lucy had the cutest airplane invitations and they went with our color theme, too! Lucy and Claire were a dream to work with and they do custom invitations. Also, if your kids need Valentines, she has so many cute ones available in her shop!

|playing with daddy|

|working the food truck|

|the cutest play area|

|william and his friends|

|dropping off luggage and taking our seats|

Venue

With a January birthday, we are pretty much limited to indoor ideas. One of the things that William loves to do is go to Play Street. They have multiple locations in the Dallas area and we have been to three of them. The “On the Go” Play Street in Allen is William’s absolute favorite. There is an airplane, DART Bus, massive train set and a little town with a travel agency, a hotel, a coffee shop and a food truck. It is such a fun place to let his imagination run wild.

|uncle justin & aunt kat|

|behind the scenes ;)|

|the best funfetti cupcakes|

|with Gigi and GB|

Food/Drinks

The party was at 2:00 pm, so we didn’t need to do much food; the kids were too busy playing anyway! On the tables we had pretzel thins (William’s current favorite snack) and Annie’s snack mix. For dessert, we had William’s birthday cake, funfetti cupcakes and decorated sugar cookies. William’s favorite thing to drink is sparkling water (he only drinks almond milk or plain water), so it was a special treat to have!

birthday cake|funfetti cupcakes – made by his aunt mere|cookies

|william and gigi|

|pretty excited about his funfetti cupcake|

|helping our little guy blow out his candles|

|happy birthday to william|

|cake toppper|

Decor

The venue is cute enough as is, but I love all the bright white and that they have a blank slate for you to add whatever decor you would like. (Note: There are different levels of party plans at Play Street – even one that will take care of everything for your party!). We decided to go with red, navy and light blue for our party colors and we love how it all turned out!

|the birthday boy – ready for takeoff|

|william’s favorite drink – sparkling water|

|he is train obsessed|

|ready for his party|

Clothing

I had the hardest time finding airplane outfits for the boys, so we had A to Z Monograms create these matching outfits for the boys. We picked out their shirts, William’s shorts, Henry’s diaper cover and had Veronica work her magic! We are so happy with how they turned out. William was so excited to wear his “birthday party outfit” and to have Henry in his matching one!

It was a cold day, so the three of us opted for jeans and tops!

on stia: ruffle top|jeans|mule loafers

on jean: red off the shoulder top (perfect for valentine’s day!)|stagger hem jeans|valentino flats

on katherine: sweater|jeans|mule loafers

|kisses from the birthday boy|

It was a perfect day for our precious William and we are so happy to have these pictures to remember the day! Xx

Cheers,

Stia, Jean and Katherine

Photography: Sweet Memory Photography

Invitation/Menu

Venue

Food/Drinks

Cups/Napkins

Lighting

Balloons ​​​​​​​

Flowers

Cake​​​​​​​

What the Boys Wore

Cheers,

Stia, Jean and Katherine

Invitations

Venue

Food/Drinks

Decor

What the Boys Wore

Cheers,

Stia, Jean and Katherine

Invitations

Venue

Food/Drinks

Decor

Clothing

Balloons

Cake