This post is sponsored by the Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago. It is also in collaboration with Made With Love Party and Event Planning, Moon and Back, Rock and Tulle, Decadence by Racheli and Raya Zigun Photography. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Wow! We’ve been sick over at the Goldwater Casa, so I’m just so glad I can finally get this beauty out to y’all! Let’s just say that it’s been a whirlwind seeing this party come to fruition. In case you’re just tuning in, my children are 12 months apart. They just turned 3 and 2, and we hosted their birthday party as one big bash at the Kohl Children’s Museum.
But let’s be real. Birthday parties are CRAZY…
We put so much time and energy (and money!) into an event that lasts for, what, 2 hours?! Especially when the kids are so little, they likely won’t even remember it. So what’s the take away? We do it because our kids mean the world to us, and we want to celebrate the anniversary of the day they came into the world!
But how can we make the days last longer? Longer than just 2 hours. And longer in our memories? I’m going to take you through our birthday party at the Kohl Children’s Museum (KCM) and share what made our day so special and one that Adam and I, all of our guests and even our kids will definitely remember for many years to come.
Picking the perfect location.
About 4 months before the party, I spoke to the staff at KCM and set a tentative date for the party. I wanted to make sure we had reserved a room so I wouldn’t have to worry about it as we got closer to the party. I’m so glad I did because December was a crazy month in our house, and I barely had time to think about the party.
Joe Mampe and Dave Judy from KCM were excellent to work with. From helping to figure out time slots for the party and every time I emailed them to increase the numbers on our guest list (whoops!) they were so accommodating and quick to respond.
Since we had the locale set in stone, I got to work with my homegirl Christina Cate from Cate Creative on our invites. She made my imagination come to life.
Now that we’ve got people coming, it’s time to get moving!
When I finally got my act together in mid-December, I connected with Ceri Pisarek, owner of Made with Love Party and Event Planning. To say that Ceri was amazing is an understatement. From the first time we spoke, we just got the idea that I had in my mind, and was ready to bring it to fruition.
We spoke on the phone multiple times and texted back and forth to get the vision that I had. So, about that vision…I decided to go with a Book theme for the party. KCM had a Storyland Exhibit that was open through Jan. 13th, so our theme tied in perfectly to that special part of the museum.
The key to my happiness at the party was having Ceri there to make sure everything was set up and taken care of. I barely had to worry about anything, and I was able to focus on my kids on their special day. But I’ll get more to that later!
Fine details
I always get my kids special birthday shirts to wear on their birthdays. We didn’t do personalized ones last year, but I knew I wanted them for this year. I know, some of you are thinking, “They only wear them for one day! What a waste!” But if you don’t care, your child can wear their special shirt on days that aren’t their birthday. Miri is wearing hers as I write this, and she wears a different one to sleep at night!
I worked with Paula from Moon and Back on the shirts, and they turned out even better than I could’ve imagined. I am in love. And the kids were pretty psyched about them also.
And can we talk about the awesome pants? Nikki from Rock and Tulle makes these seriously cool pants where you can put almost any pattern or character behind the rips in the leg. Miri got cupcakes to match her Mirilicious shirt, and Azi got construction trucks to match his “Two Cool” dump truck shirt.
But I still haven’t told you how I plan to make the shirts last longer than just the wear. Well, I keep memory boxes for my kids where I store special things from their first year. Things like their hospital bracelets, newborn hats and birth announcements. But I also keep items from over the years that have special meaning, like Miri’s first monogrammed and smocked romper (to diiiie for!). So this is where I put things like this. I know we’ll all be so glad to have all of these memories to look back on and spark memories of the amazing day we had.
What’s a party without cake?
I think this is the place you can splurge a little. A birthday cake is truly the centerpiece of a party. No matter what the other decor is. Basically, the decorations are supporting actors to the star, the cake.
I was so happy when Racheli from Decadence by Racheli reached out to me about working together on the kids’ birthday cake for the party. I’ve seen some of her previous work, and stunning doesn’t do it justice. Racheli has a real talent, and I was glad I got to take advantage of her creative mind for this project.
This cake was a combination masterpiece of our two favorite, and completely opposite books, Pinkalicious and Little Blue Truck. It takes serious talent to make one cake out of two totally different things and make it look like it’s meant to be together. I don’t know about you, but this cake is just perfect for me, and I think my kids and our guests thought so too.
k so I wanna talk about decorations.
They’re tricky. Because you need them to make a party come to life, but you don’t want to overspend because they usually end up getting thrown out. My suggestion? Make decorations that can a) be reused, and b) find them from places like the dollar store or etsy or oriental trading company.
So let’s talk about the decorations that Ceri from Made with Love did for our party. Because they were amazing, and they are totally multi-purpose, and we did it that way on purpose.
Okay, so see the amazing book covers that Ceri made to hang on the walls? Well, they each are these blank, white-page notebooks from Bullseye’s Playground (Dollar Spot) at Target. I kept all of them, and my kids are using them to color in. If your kids are older, they could write their own books. See what I mean? Multi-purpose…Oh, and those ribbons? Well the books are clipped on, so I just wrapped those babies up to use another day. Perfect!
Also note the vases for the centerpieces. I kept all 8 of them, and definitely plan to re-use at a future family birthday or other event.
I’m obsessed with this book garland that Ceri made. She totally made my imagination come to life. This baby is currently waiting to be hung in my kids’ playroom. How cute is that? Right over the reading nook…it’s going to be perfect.
And last but not least…party favors!
Let me be the first to say that I usually hate party favors. It’s always just a bunch of junk that the kids love and I sneak into the garbage while they’re sleeping. This was my first time doing party favors, so I was determined for this NOT to happen!
But again, limited budget and not junk were my two main boxes to tick. I went to Half Priced Books and got one book for each kid at the party. I didn’t spend more than $4 a book, which is probably how much I would’ve spent on junky party favors anyway. To help make it my own, Christina
threw together these adorable labels that I stuck on each book.
Then Paula from Moon and Back got me some colorful tote bags with adorable tags on them. And ta-da! Really affordable party favors that everyone is going to keep! Re-usable tote bags and books for the win!
Did I forget to mention that I highly recommend hiring a photographer to capture the event? Then you don’t have to worry about being on your phone and missing the moments! A huge thank you to Raya Zigun for covering the event so this social media maven mama could be in the moment with the fam.
Guys, I really just feel so blessed that we were able to celebrate the two brightest little souls with all of our family and a lot of our friends. I’m not sure how we’ll ever be able to top this one. Again, a huge HUGE thank you to all of the vendors who made the event a smashing success and especially to the Kohl Museum, for inspiring the entire theme and making all of our imaginations come to life.
For more info about memberships and birthdays at the Kohl Children’s Museum, visit their website.
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