In what literally felt like the blink of an eye we went from Kedzie’s winter wONEderland party to celebrating her second birthday! I never got around to sharing anything from her first birthday, but I figured writing about her second birthday may motivate me to catch up.
Per usual, we went to Michigan to celebrate. (We do this for all of our kids’ birthdays as we have no family (and limited friends) here in the city.) I always try to pick a theme or at a minimum a color scheme to help inspire any event that I’m organizing; for Kedzie’s second birthday, Shawn weighed in and we went with “Tea for Two.”
To be honest, I felt like I could have done a lot more with this theme, but given that I was around six weeks postpartum with Collins, we had just traveled for Christmas, and we were only coming in for the weekend – I just didn’t get around to it. However, this was the least I stressed about a party and it was really nice! (But – there’s always a but – I would be lying if I didn’t share that the mom guilt was real; I felt like I was shorting my “middle child.”)
Clearly two year olds don’t drink tea …
and I had already committed to a theme, so we needed to carry the “tea party” idea beyond the invites and decor. For me, catering is always the most exhausting part of any event. Especially with kids parties because you have to please a wide variety of ages and the headcount is always so difficult to nail down. (With Kedzie’s birthday being in the winter, we never know what weather we’ll have which always results in last minute adds/drops.) This (along with the litany of reasons I gave above) resulted in me not having time to arrange caterers and resulted in a DIY of the food. Luckily, my mom and Shawn were tremendous helpers – and we landed on making really casual, kid-friendly tea sandwiches:
- peanut butter and jelly
- ham and cheese
- mini avocado toasts
- seafood salad
- lemon curd and fresh berries
In addition the sandwiches, we did a cheese board and had a ton of dippable snacks! Per usual, the dessert bar is always my favorite!
heart shaped PB&J and flower ham & cheese 
dessert bar 
one of Shawn’s coworkers makes macaroons as her side hustle 
ammy’s banana nut cake with Saunders icing 
always snacking 
more dessert
these simple favors were such a debate for me … I knew the kids wouldn’t be overly impressed, but I just couldn’t talk myself into buying more plastic junk to send home with the attendees.
This year’s quiet party was the perfect follow up to last year’s chaos.
The kids were able to enjoy themselves without an insane amount of “scheduled fun” and Shawn and I were able to socialize with the family and friends we don’t get to see nearly enough!
sharing with ammy 
my original tripod 
big sis, Palmer, was sure to get her cupcake fix as well
the birthday girl definitely enjoyed herself …
at just 2 she’s a seasoned pro 
this girl!
the icing on the cake …
it snowed like crazy and we were able to follow up her party with her first sledding adventure! (and hot cocoa.)
collins was even able to enjoy some fresh air!
Do you have winter babies? Now having a second winter birthday, I am not sure how we’ll stay on top of the parties with Christmas sandwiched between Kedz and Ollie.