A Chocolate Tree For Miss B

If in the past 6 months you’ve visited our house, saw us at school, ran into us at the grocery store or bumped into us in the public bathroom, then you’ve heard this:

 “I’mGonnaHaveAChocolateTreeAtMyBirthdayISoEsscited!!!”

 Translation? Yes, please.

 “I’m going to have a chocolate tree at my birthday!  I’m so excited!”

Believe it or not, my now 3 year old has been saying that for over 6 months!  After being inspired by her L.O.V.E of chocolate and a specific episode of Dora that involves a singing and dancing chocolate tree, the ‘Chocolate Tree Birthday’ was born.

{Don’t worry; I worked some bacon in there too.  For those of you that know the birthday girl, you know what I’m talking about}. ;)

M came to my rescue again.  I told him about my ideas for this chocolate tree that I’d been dreaming up.  The plan was my take on those vinyl tree decals for walls that have shelves you can hang where the branches would be.  We took that concept and tweaked it a little.  We made the whole thing out of wood and made it free-standing.  First I made a tree shaped pattern and traced it on the plywood.  He did the cutting, then I got to painting.  The end result was perfect.  How could we tell?  When the birthday girls saw it she squealed “is that my chocolate tree”?  Yep.  Perfection.

 Add 26,573 lbs. of chocolate candy, cake pops, cupcakes, milk and birthday cake, and you’ve about summed up the party.  I hope you enjoy all the pics…….we only took OVER 500.  Ridiculous, seriously ridiculous.

Here she is in all her glory.  I used the tree to display cake pops {I glued paper flowers onto the sticks to
look like blossoms on the tree}, Hershey Kiss acorns and chocolate dipped strawberries.

This was the drink station.  We served up ice cold milk {both plain and chocolate}, some
chocolate wine for the mommies and daddies and good ol' water.

I added "milk mustaches" to the straws that coordinated with whatever flavor milk you were drinking.

The chocolate/vanilla swirl marshmallows looking lovely under a glass dome.

I got these for M.  I think they are beyond nasty, but he loves them so here they are.

I used the paint stick crates {made for this party} to add some different heights to the table.

Cute lil' minis.

The GORGEOUS cake my mom made.  Her talent disgusts me.

A giant, we're talking 24X36, photo I had printed of the birthday girl.  I mounted it to a sheet of styrofoam insulation and finished off the edges with some brown satin ribbon.  Keep scrolling down for better pics of it.

Yes, you read that right.  Bacon, toffee and chocolate.  It was actually REALLY good.
The white apothecary jar on the right was made with an old pickle jar, a Dollar Tree
candlestick and a wooden finial!

I just love the cake.  Found the 'B' at Michael's.  Glued some wooden skewers
to the back and BAM! instant cake topper.

I designed these subway style prints and mounted them to foam board.
They looked great over the drink station.

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby girl.  Love you.

She had a great time and, are you ready for this, is already talking about her next birthday!  She's telling anyone and everyone that she's having a red birthday cake.  Hmmmm......better get to planning, only have 360 days till she turns 4! :)

Have a great rest of the week and thanks for reading!

Pirates and a SNOW DAY!!!

What is it about snow days?  Don’t know about you, but around here we LOVE them.  And lucky for us, it doesn’t take very much snow to get school canceled.  They really should call them 'Slush Days', or perhaps 'It-Looks-Like-It-Could-Maybe-Possibly-Snow-And-I-Don’t-Wanna-Drive-In-It-Day'.  Call whatever you want; as long as we get to sleep in, I’m good with it. 

Last weekend my dear friends twin boys turned 3.  Her sons and my youngest daughter are a little less than two months apart, so we got to be pregnant together. This meant I had someone to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru with me and order 20 piece McNuggets.  Don’t judge me.  I’ve heard ALL about how they make McNuggets, and frankly when those pregnancy cravings are calling, you just don’t care. 

I offered to help her with the tablescape for G & B’s party.  The theme was Pirates, so of course I immediately had visions of pirate ships.  With help {a lot of help} from M, we came up with a really cute design.  Using $7 worth of dowels from Home Depot, some FREE wood I’d picked up awhile back {you just never know when you’ll need some 2X4’s, plywood, picket fencing, etc.} and some left over wood stain, we had ourselves a ship!  I made the sails from some misc. fabric I’d picked up at Digger and the table cloth was a striped one my mom has had forever.  I revamped the cupcake stand he built me this summer {used both here and here}, and we slapped together some “crates” using paint stir sticks {which the sweet gal at Home Depot gave me for FREE! Whoop whoop!!}  A basket made the perfect crow’s nest, some cute pirate bunting and this FREE printable finished it off.  Some of the pics are a tad blurry {sorry bout that.  I think I’m still having withdrawals from my recent break-up with coffee}, but take a look at what I came up with.

She had this cute Sock Monkey pirate already.  How perfect was that?!

I can't take any credit for this treasure chest.  The birthday boys' grandma made it from an old diaper box.  Yep, she's that good.

Treasure chest cupcakes.  Make the sand by crushing up graham crackers and dipping frosted cupcakes in them.

Just because you're serving pizza doesn't mean you can't make it look cute.  We arranged the different varieties on platters and it looked great!

I picked up this cute wooden treasure chest at Craft Warehouse for $1.50!  Score!!  Fill it with gold candies from the bulk section of the grocery store and you've got yourself a tasty little treasure.

Well, that's it for now.  Hope everyone has a great day, only two more days till the weekend!  Yay!!