Max's Fifth Birthday Construction Party

I tend to go a little MIA in the January/February months. It is a slow time for me business-wise (as few people want to have family portraits done when it is cold enough outside to freeze the snot inside your nose), and following the busy fall rush, I am in need of a little break to unwind and get things organized for the new year.

But February is rapidly coming to an end, so it's time to break the silence and get back to blogging. And what better way to do so than by celebrating my sweet baby boy's fifth birthday. FIFTH BIRTHDAY!?!?! Holy. Cow. Max has been requesting a "construction party" for his fifth birthday party roughly since the time his fourth birthday party ended. The good news: I had plenty of time to brainstorm. The bad news: he wanted a construction party in February in Illinois.

 Since we definitely could not hold the party outside (where all good construction parties should be) and our house is a smidge too small to do the party there, we rented a large party space from our town's recreation department to be the build site. The plan? Let the kids go to town with "bricks" (cardboard boxes) and "paint" (art supplies of all different kinds, except (ironically) paint), and build a house. I was a little apprehensive as to whether the idea would be a flop or a triumph, but I need not have worried, because, as all parents know, cardboard boxes are really the world's most perfect toy.

 We topped off the party with a riveting game of "pin the wrecking ball on the crane" and a bulldozer pinata. And after the candles were blown out and the cake was consumed? The kids headed straight back to the cardboard boxes to begin building, decorating, and demoing all over again. Party success.

 

(no hating on my drawing skills...)

And in case you're wondering....
Hard Hats came from Oriental Trading 
Cone Cups came from Birthday Express

All Boy ~ I Heart Faces

It's been awhile since I've participated in an I Heart Faces challenge, but as the mom of two boys I couldn't resist the "All Boy" theme this week. And what is more boy-tastic than blowing out the candles on your baseball birthday cake? Love this picture of my "all boy" boy.
 

Head over to I Heart Faces to see more great boy submissions.

To see more from Max's baseball birthday, click here.

A Perfect Princess Party ~ Deerfield Birthday Party Photographer

You only turn three once, so when it comes to your party, you better go big or go home, right? Little Ms. Madi chose to go princess! Madi's perfect princess party was this weekend at Wonder in Deerfield. Now before we go any farther, if you're a parent in the Chicagoland area and you haven't been to Wonder, stop what you're doing, bookmark this page so you can come back to it later, get in your car and go check out Wonder right now. No really. Go. I'll wait.
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Back? Totally awesome right? So you can just imagine what an amazing setting that would make for a pink and purple princess party! Madi's mom thought of everything from princess pretzels to princess dress up to a real princess! Admit it, you want to turn three again and have a princess party like Madi, don't you?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADI!!!!

Update: I couldn't figure out why the link to the Wonder website wasn't working. A little googling just revealed that a mere three days after Madi's party Wonder closed its doors. Boo! So if you really got in your car and drove to Wonder on my advice, a hearty apology from me!

Baseball Birthday Bash ~ North Shore Birthday Photography

My little big guy turned four this weekend. I've yet to figure out how that happened. Last time I checked he was still a baby. But we celebrated his 4-year-oldness with a big boy baseball party. Max loves to play baseball and has been anxiously waiting for his fourth birthday so that he'll be old enough to play t-ball, so we thought a baseball birthday was the best way to celebrate his newly earned t-ball eligibility!

Earlier that morning I photographed the most adorable princess party for the most adorable three-year-old girl. I'll be back soon with a preview from that party! 

Resources & Links for Max's Baseball Party:
Printables were made by me using elements from a digital scrapbooking kit I bought a few years ago. Unfortunately, I can't find where I got it from, but here's something similar.
Red Buckets for centerpieces came from Hobby Lobby
Baseball balloons came from Balloon Warehouse and we used fat red permanent markers to decorate them.
Baseball Cookies from Lovin' Oven in Libertyville. We packaged them ourselves.

Baby Blaz's Book Shower ~ Lake County Baby Shower Photographer

I have a confession to make. I love party planning. No really, I LOOOOOVE party planning. For Max's birthday this year, I threw two parties. And you saw the tea party I threw for no reason, right? Um, yeah.

But here's the thing. It's not my fault. I come by it naturally. It's genetic. My sister loves party planning just as much, if not more than I do, and my mom, while she may not love party planning quite as much as us, she loves making crafty paper things, which works great with the whole party planning dealio. We really should go into biz.

So needless to say, when our dear friend Katie told us all earlier this year that baby number two was on the way, we were all "Heck yes, we get to throw a party! Oh and we're super excited about the baby, too."

We decided to make the shower a book theme (this later became the inspiration for Baby Shores v.2.0's nursery, by the way), and this weekend we got to see everything come together. We used a turquoise and red theme, since Blaz (pronounced like "blaze" but no "e") is a boy bambino, and because the color combo is just so fun. The centerpiece of it all was the food table (there was A LOT of food) featuring food themed for various children's books. We also tormented entertained the guests with a rousing game of Fictionary (get it? It's like Pictionary, but with books. Fictionary. Bwahahaha!)

What a blast. And now that the party is over, there's only one thing left to do: sit back and wait for Baby Blaz to make his arrival! Come on Blaz!

I designed the invitations (inspired by this one I found on Pinterest) and printed them at Vista Print. The turquoise envelopes came from Paper Source. The milk bottles are repurposed Starbucks latte bottles.

When guests arrived they were asked to play an ice breaker game where they had to decode book titles from the synonymous clues we provided. For example, the clue "Place where the footpath terminates" was really "Where the Sidewalk Ends." The adorable favors at the top corner of each place setting were magnets made by my very talented mama.

As I said, we went a little over the top with the food. It was SO worth it though.







Mama Katie and big sister Nora. Aren't they beautiful?

We asked each guest to bring a book to build Baby Blaz's library. I think he will be a great reader some day, don't you?

And last have to share this one of big sister Nora. Pondering big sisterhood, perhaps?

Woodland Tea Party ~ Lake County Children's Photographer

One night last month I was sitting on the couch with the iPad, wasting time and avoiding things I probably should have been doing (don't judge, you do it too), when all of a sudden it came to me. I need to do a tea party session. The idea had been percolating back there in the dusty corners of my brain for a while, but suddenly someone flipped a switch and I just had to do a tea party session or else. (Note: all the italics are meant to emphasize the seriousness of this subject. No really. It is quite serious being inside my head. You get that, right?) Anyhow...

Problem: I have a three-year old little boy who loves dinosaurs and baseball. Not tea parties.

Solution: I have a ton of awesome clients and facebook fans who have adorable tea-party-rific little girls!

So, I put out a model call and month or so later I end up with five precious three-year olds dressed in their tea party finest. BLISS!!!! The whole thing was such a blast to put together. It felt a little bit like planning a wedding again, on a much smaller scale, of course. And I've come to the conclusion that I need to do something like this once a year or so just to exercise my creative brain and feed my need for a project. Maybe next time I'll do something for the boys. Super hero session, anyone?

Anyhow, I'll delay the picture reveal just a bit longer to say THANK YOU to the little girls and their families who came out to play with me at my tea party, and an even bigger THANK YOU to my totally awesome, incredible, outrageously understanding, and indulgent husband. See that cabinet the food is on? Yeah, he hauled that across a not insignificant-sized field for me. That and a bunch of other stuff. Am I lucky or what?

Okay, now really.....presenting the KSP Woodland Tea Party:

Up, Up and Away

Sorry for the lack of blog posts but we have been away. By means of a 737 (and not a bunch of balloons) we flew to Florida to celebrate my son's third birthday at the happiest place on earth. What a blast! I won't bore you with the family snapshots (although, if you're interested I'll post them on Maxaroni (and Cheese)) later today, but while we were there I took the boy out to Disney's Boardwalk to toy with an idea for his birthday pictures.

As these things tend to go, my idea did not work out exactly as I had planned, but I am still IN LOVE with this first picture, and my back up plan saved the day for the rest. I am having dreams of a canvas wall over my fireplace now....

And in case you're wondering how I got so lucky to have the Boardwalk all to myself, the truth is, I didn't. That is one of the kinks that got thrown in my grand plan. There were a lot of people there! I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me before. In my head, Max and I were leisurely taking pictures on an empty Boardwalk filled with late afternoon sun, with blue sky stretching out beyond him. In reality, the Boardwalk is curved, so the blue sky was hidden behind buildings, and there were people everywhere.

Here's a secret. The first picture is doctored. I used three different pictures to make it appear that there was no one else around. Check out the original below (you can also see what it looks like straight out of the camera without the vintage processing), and the final edit again. Pretty cool, right?

I'm not saying photoshop should fix everything. Ideally, you can get the shot without having to doctor it later, but in this case, I'm glad I was able to save this one with a little digital magic!

I'll be back soon with a few more disney shots. Fireworks! Oooh! Aaaah!