Happy birthday to my oldest baby, who turns three today! I love this little person so much, and it has been so thrilling to watch her grow into the person she has become so far. She is capable of so many grown up things now, and is (usually) a delight to be around. Her imagination is so great, and her favourite thing to do currently is to pretend and/ or tell stories, which she does on a daily basis (this has worked in everyone's favour, making car trips more bearable, and mealtimes, too: "Laura Shark, you should gobble up this fish!" ;) ... although she still prefers not to feed herself.) Drawing and arts/ crafts are not among her favourite activities, however, she is adept at drawing circles and making faces, tracing objects, and the like. Her current thing she likes to draw are "pornados". She recognizes most letters now, and associates them with a word they begin. She can recite numbers up to about 12, although the actual concept of counting is perhaps still a little lost. She has an amazing memory for details, and is very observant. She still remembers crazy details from our trip to Disney World for her second birthday. She also seems to have a passion for music, and sings on pitch almost all of the time. She loves to make up songs and/ or silly new lyrics to already existing tunes. Quite the comedian, she is, and we love her very much.
For Laura's birthday party this year, we went with a Dora Fiesta theme. We tried to avoid introducing Laura to Dora the Explorer for as long as possible. But, alas, it was inevitable, as her face seems to be nearly everywhere. Netflix was our downfall. I think we watched 16 episodes the week Laura discovered it. And so, the party planner in me couldn't help but start fashioning a Dora party while the mind-numbing show played in the background. I wasn't sure if she would still be into Dora by the time her third birthday rolled around, so I held off on any concrete plans for a few months. But, if we're being honest... the more I thought about it, the more excited I became to throw this party.
Instead of searching Google or Pinterest for ideas, I came up with most of this party on my own. I find the internet can actually stifle my creativity that way, sometimes. Pinterest filled in the gaps here and there, and I discovered later on that other people had similar ideas to mine, but, most of these were my own original plans. I wanted to throw a Dora party without having her commercialized face everywhere. For these kinds of parties, I like to take the theme and colour scheme from the show, but put as much of a homemade spin on them as I can. Because of this - and the fact that I have two small children - I have to start party preparations well in advance, which is totally okay with me - I love doing it! (And for the record, I'm never trying to 'out do' anyone in my birthday party hosting, I just really like party planning and throwing. :) It's a great outlet for my creative side.)
During a creative high in the fall, I was inspired to make a pinata for Laura's birthday. So that was when we concretely decided on the Dora Fiesta theme. Laura 'helped' make the pinata, and we filled it with with on sale Halloween candy. Sorry if it's a little stale ;). Not a lot more got done on the party preparations for the next couple months what with Christmas and all of that, but for the last few weeks I spent almost every night after the girls were in bed finishing up all the projects I had planned. And so, without further ado, here are the details of our Laura the Explorer party!
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| Invites |
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| Invite outside Invite inside (I spent way too long in photoshop doing this.) |
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Laura the Explorer and her sidekick, Baby Boots |
Once all the guests had arrived, I took them up to Laura's room so Josh and his parents could set up while I introduced the adventure.
I would like to tell you a story:
Can we help Laura get her birthday piñata back from Swiper?
Grab your backpacks! Let’s go! Laura has made some special bracelets for all of her explorer friends! Let’s look in our backpacks for our explorer bracelets.
Is this an explorer bracelet?
No, that’s a noise maker.
Is this an
explorer bracelet?
Yes! Everybody put on your explorer bracelets!
Is everybody
ready now? ~ Even though Dora always has lots of random items in her backpack, I held back my urge to fill the backpacks with random Made in China junk. ~
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| Explorer bracelets made by Laura :) |
But who do we ask for help when we don’t know which way to
go? You have to say “Map!”
Everybody get out your maps. We need to find Swiper’s den so we can get Laura’s piñata back!
Everybody get out your maps. We need to find Swiper’s den so we can get Laura’s piñata back!
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| Map drawn by Daddy |
To get to Swiper’s den, we have to go through the viney forest, past the snowy volcano, and through the gate. That’s how we get to Swiper’s den!
Come on, say it with me: forest, volcano, Swiper’s den. Forest, volcano, Swiper’s den. Forest, volcano, Swiper’s den!
Come on, vamanos, everybody let's go! Come on let's get to it, I know that you can do it! Where are we going? Swiper's den! Where are we going? Swiper's den! Where are we going? Swiper's den!
And if you see stars
along the way, you need to catch them and put them in your star pocket!
Viney Forest
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Now that we made it through the viney forest, where do we go
next?
Next comes the snowy volcano! Does anybody see the snowy volcano?
Let’s get our coats and boots on to go outside past the snowy volcano.
Next comes the snowy volcano! Does anybody see the snowy volcano?
Let’s get our coats and boots on to go outside past the snowy volcano.
We need to bring eight ice marbles over to the snowy volcano so
it can erupt.
Can you count eight ice marbles with me?
Can you count eight ice marbles with me?
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| (thanks to our neighbour, Mr. Plow for the snow pile) :) |
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Great job, everybody! Let’s look at our map to find out
where we go next.
We have to go through the gate to get to Swiper’s den. Do you
see a gate?
Everybody say "abre"!
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We made it through the gate. Where do we go next? Swiper's den!
Do you see Swiper's den? No? What are these? They look like fox prints! Let's follow them - maybe they will lead us to Swiper's den!
Do you see Swiper's den? No? What are these? They look like fox prints! Let's follow them - maybe they will lead us to Swiper's den!
We did it, we did it, we did it, hooray!
The music was Daddy's project. Though I was
the one who flipped through all the Dora episodes
to find words that fit with our adventure. ;)
Let’s see how many stars we caught! Let’s take them out and
count them. Laura got the most stars, she gets to hit the piñata first!
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| We had to bring in the heavy hitter (Daddy) to crack it open ;) |
For their favours, the girls got to take home their homemade backpacks with the candy, stickers, and hair accessories from the pinata, as well as their explorer bracelets and noise makers.
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After their adventure, and the pinata had been destroyed, we served lunch.
Lunch was loosely fiesta-themed, in the sense that we had a make-your-own taco bar (Tico's Tacos). :) We also served Boot's Berry Lemonade, fruit, and melon balls (one of Laura's favourites), and veggies and dip. We had individual cups of Map's Marshmallow Salad, too, that I specifically made with Laura in mind.
Other snacks included colour-coordinated jelly beans and candied popcorn
and Mexicana nachos and dip.
and Mexicana nachos and dip.
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| Swiper's Sweet Treats |
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| Benny's Bean Dip |
(I used this technique to decorate the cake)
Hope you had a great birthday, My Girl!!! <3 <3 <3
Also, a big thanks must be sent out to the in-laws who helped us out a lot with the party production. :)
