My little Madelyn turned 3 yesterday. Its so hard to believe 3 years have FLOWN by! She is 3 going on 25!!!!!

I decided this year I was NOT going to have a party at my house becuase I didn’t want to deal with the pre cleaning, decorating, food, entertaining THEN still have to clean up and not to mention having to cram left overs in the fridge. We decided to have it at Chucky Cheese BUT not on the weekend when its a zoo! Everything turned out GREAT! Lots of family and friends showed up for a Tuesday evening.

The theme of her party was Dora….Madelyn is her stalker! I always told myself when I had kids I wasn’t going to buy them character clothes or any items because I just thought it was silly. WELL, now that I am in that stage in life I am buying Dora EVERYTHING. Madelyn LOVES Dora so much! So I decided to let her have a Dora party but not the traditional cookie cutter party items.

I had my sister Melinda do a photoshoot for her birthday (click HERE to view full shoot). She loves dressing girly and funky so I made her this tutu for the shoot. The picture I used for the invitation was her holding up 3 fingers. Here is what I sent out….

Her daycare said if I brought a cake they would have a little party for her so of course I couldn’t pass this up. She got a double dose of Happy Birthday sung to her. Baking is NOT a natural talent I was born with but I am making myself get better at it. I made a white cake and added food coloring so it had a tie dye affect. I attempted to write on the cake but it looked like I gave Madelyn the gel pen and she did the writing! SO, I decorated it with skittles….sugar high for all that had some of it! Here is the cake before I put icing on it and the final turn out. Madelyn LOVED this cake!

 

Again, I didn’t want anything you could find at your local party store so I did some research and found some really good ideas. I made these super cute Dora Backpack bags from a brown paper lunch sack. I never really experienced a hand cramp so severe until I had to paint both sides of these bags in one setting. I HAD to make sure the Map was on there since he plays a big role of the backpack. Here is what I came up with…….

One of my very good friends that I have been friends with since junior high made Madelyn the best Dora cake!!!!! I showed her a picture and she duplicated it. Here is the example cake and what she made

Since Madelyn is SUCH a fan of tutu’s I made her an official “birthday tutu”. Nevaeh is NOT a girly girl and doesn’t like skirts or dresses BUT she wanted a tutu so I had to jump on this opportunity. I made both of them tutu’s with some fun ribbon thrown in there. Here are a few pictures of them with them on. Excuse Madelyn’s non photogenic smile she just did not want to take these pictures. I must say they made me laugh though!!!!!

Here are just some fun pictures of her special night. You will probably notice her cake has more then 3 candles. Anytime someone asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said candles so I had to make sure she had a few more then 3

She got to get in the ticket machine and catch as many tickets possible. If you want to cheat put a tutu on your child because that thing was like glue!!!!!! She had to gear up before going in though!Nevaeh was really hoping she could jump in and help her lol!

I HAD to throw this one gift in (not that all of the gifts weren’t great) because it was SO creative and made just for Madelyn. My very good crafting friend Priscilla made her the cutest craft bucket. It had everything she needed to paint, color and just do general crafts. Here is what she made

I love the fact that she put pictures of her on the lid!

Her party was a success and by far a breeze since I didn’t have to do any work once I got there. I am so grateful for everyone that came and spent this special evening with us during a school night/work week!!!!

SIGH- now lets get ready for Christmas lol!