Everyone knows that I love a good themed party and Julia's birthday is always the perfect excuse to go a little nuts ;-) We settled on a monster theme for Julia's third birthday party since she was really into monsters around that time. She LOVED to pretend like someone was a monster chasing her to tickle her. She'd always pretend to be scared and scream and hide. So much fun.
Both my whole family and Aaron's whole family came to celebrate with us, so we had a full house to ring in Julia's new year. We all felt bad when partway through the night, Julia began complaining that her tummy hurt. It was sad to see she wasn't feeling her best, but she still rallied and had a lot of fun, especially performing some songs for us with her new Sofia boom box from my parents. It was such a special night for Julia to be surrounded by so many people who love her so much.
The Decorations
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| My monster masterpiece :-) |
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| I took this photo of Julia in her monster ski cap especially for the party and had it printed as an 8x10. I flanked it by some professional photos of Julia from the summer. We've never changed out the monster picture, so I'm sure sometimes people wonder why we have a huge photo of our daughter in a silly hat in an 8x10 frame, of all pictures. Haha. |
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| Party hats are a must in my book. Aaron and I hot glued googly eyes and used white paper and sharpies to make all kids of fun monster hats. |
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| Food but also a decoration. Our cupcakes! We used black food dye on marshmallows to make eyes, then stuck them on colorful toothpicks. We used colored gel to create vibrant colors of frosting. |
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| The monthly photo has been my favorite detail at all Julia's parties. This year, I chose a fun photo from each month, rather than using the chair or door pictures. The differences month to month are definitely way less stark than the past couple years! |
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| Dec 2012 - March 2013 |
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| April 2013 - July 2013 |
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| August 2013 - November 2013 |
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| Aaron and I also made a felt monster banner for over the fireplace. We got this idea (and most of the others) from some internet searches for monster parties. There's such a variety of fun ideas online these days - what did we ever do back in the day? |
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| Aaron helped Julia make decorations for the hallway - he had her color pictures of monsters and let her name them. |
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| The results were pretty hilarious. |
The Food
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| The spread. We set up the kitchen table buffet style and everyone ate in the living room. |
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| The cups were decorated too. We hot glued eyes on cups as well. Not my most brilliant idea because we totally ruined a few cups as they melted when the hot glue got too hot... haha! |
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| Cute paper goods. |
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| We let Julia choose the menu. She choose ham for the meat. |
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| And mac and cheese, of course. I made SO much food. It's hard for this photo to give you perspective of how much mac and cheese this really was. |
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| Julia's favorite vegetable at age 3 was broccoli, which I roasted. |
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| Homemade hot rolls. |
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| And dessert! |
The people
Last, but not least, the party itself! We really had a fun night and were so grateful to our families for making it so special for Julia.
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| This lady had more fun at Julia's party this year than last year ;-) |
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| Opening her presents. |
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| You can see my mom was excited to give Julia her boom box. She knew Julia would love it - and she was so right! |
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| Performing one of her Sofia songs, which she did many, many times that evening! |
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| While we sang to her, Julia was the most solemn little three year old you'll ever see. |
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| It was hard to tell if she was just overwhelmed or if she was sad because of her tummy ache. Look at that little face. |
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| Remember their party hats in the kitchen photo from Julia's second birthday? |
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| A little blonde in the center of it all. |
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| Fancy meeting you here. |
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| Red twin, blue twin. |
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| Have I mentioned lately that everyone is such a good sport with Julia? |
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| So happy :-D |
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| This photo makes me so happy - what a blessing Julia is growing up surrounded by such love. Poor Julia with her tummy ache, though! She looks miserable. |
It's fun to look back on my blog to see how much Julia has grown! Links to Julia's other birthday parties:
1st birthday and
2nd birthday
