The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess’s 2nd Birthday Party

We were all super excited for Tess’s 2nd Birthday Party! I’m SO glad I picked the Nemo/Dory theme…after seeing Finding Dory in theaters Tess loved the characters even more than she already had from watching Finding Nemo at home. She was thrilled to see the party come together and was so excited!

You can see all the details of the party decor and where to buy everything in this post 🙂

I love Kye’s shirt and Britt’s dress! Both from, randomly, JCPenney!

Birthday girl ready to PARTY!

I wanted us all to be in the Nemo theme and I plan for us all to re-wear the outfits to Animal Kingdom later this year so I didn’t feel too guilty buying them all. At first I was going to get Zach and I shirts from Etsy but then I found the same ones WAY cheaper on Amazon (P. Sherman Shirt and Just Keep Swimming Shirt). 

I love how into it Payton is 🙂

Hannah and Eve

Jordan and Casey

We love Aunt Katie!

Zach has given up resisting all my party planning and Disney loving and has, instead, come to almost embrace it! He’s getting there haha!!!

This is one of my fav pics from the party…I adore Lindsay 🙂

This girl and our friendship!!!!

Somehow it turned into a photo shoot for Seth haha

Eating is the kid favorite thing to do at birthday parties…especially ones with SO MANY SWEETS. My kids were on a sugar high and never wanted to come down!

It was SO sweet of Tess’s newest cousin, Kara, to come to her party! Mema loved getting to spend time with her youngest great-grandchild and we all loved soaking up some pre-toddler cuddles 🙂

Even the most SIMPLE crafts are ALWAYS a hit at a party!

I am pretty hardcore about my party timelines. I know people get bored at parties so I like to keep em running smoothly and quickly. Aside from Kye’s pirate party, we’re usually done and gone within 90 minutes from start to finish!

I REALLY liked how well Tess’s party flowed last summer. I decided to go with the same plan for this year! Everyone ate and did the craft then we did presents and cake and then we welcomed anyone who wanted to stay to swim to do so 🙂 It kinda made it into two parties the pre-swim and post-swim but it made it easy on people who wanted to stop by but not have to stay and swim and I liked not having a ton of wet kids going in and out of my house 😉

I LOVE pics from present opening…there are always some fun candids haha

Tess was zero percent interested in opening. She wanted to sit and watch ME open it all. Her favorites were a Cinderella phone from Casey, a Minnie Mouse from Courtney and a wipes case for a baby doll from G-Mama (no interest in the actual baby doll…just the wipes case haha!)

Cake time!

Here’s a video of all of us singing 🙂

Making a wish? Or praying Daddy doesn’t put her face in the flame? haha

The cake was delicious!

Our kids are so truly blessed to have so much family who live close to us. To have both of your great-grandmothers at your birthday party is something pretty special 🙂

Since turning 2 Carter’s personality has straight up exploded! He is HILARIOUS. He is always the life of the party and always keeps us laughing, especially Tess. Watching them together is something truly special. We adore our Carter and he was so funny at the party! I think the sugar only added to his already outgoing, silly self 😉 

So glad Austin, Katie and Kara came!

Best. Party. Pic. Ever. 

When you see it, you’ll know why haha

(and if this isn’t the perfect place for a shout out to Seth’s blog then I don’t know what is!)

Pool time!!! A good bit of family stayed to swim and Lindsay and her crew stayed too (which was awesome!). It was a super fun time. Everyone got in and played and the kids had a BLAST!

These two!!!

Lindsay has an awesome personality and is super fun so it’s no surprise that her daughters are the same way. Britt clicks with them so well and it’s such a wonderful blessing to have good Christian friends for our children (and ourselves!)

This birthday girl LIVED IT UP!

Kye is hilarious at parties. Kid lives for the food table and just keeps going back for more and more!!! YOLO right?!?

As everyone left Kye was precious with his littlest sister. They sat together and opened up ALL the toys and gifts she got and played with everything. Everyone was so thoughtful and brought such great things for our sweet girl. It was especially awesome letting Kye handle the toy opening…perks of having older kids 😉

I’m so appreciative to everyone who stopped by and helped make Tess’s day so special! I like to list out all the party guests for our kids to have in their blog books 🙂 This one included: Mema, Little Mama, Cheryl, Courtney, Brad, Colt, Payton, Casey, Jordan, Carter, Austin, Katie, Kara, G-Mama, Big Papa, Lindsay, Hannah, Eve, Seth, Stevie, Neela, Titus, Olive, Katie, Ashley and Maggie Grace. 

Zach and I deserved a little “treat yo self” night after all our hard work haha. I love some sugary treats so this made for a yummy dinner 🙂

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Emily Parker
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