Every year as soon as Christmas wraps, I need something to divert my attention from the lull in festivities. It doesn’t take me long before I realize there’s another celebration just around the corner – Cora’s birthday! This year she turned six years old, and when I asked her for a theme she simply said, “Ballet!” Pink, glitter, tutus, sounds like a party to me! I got to work sending out invitations, planning the details, and she really looked forward to the party this year. She kept asking me, “Mom, do you have anything planned for my birthday or not?!” And I would just play along, “I don’t know, Cora, maybe I do, maybe I don’t!”

The night before the party, we had a company here in San Antonio called “Sign Gypsies” set up a huge display in our front yard to celebrate the occasion. I knew it was going to be big, but when they started setting up I realized it was B-I-G. I mean look at this thing!

Sign Gypsies Boerne

The party didn’t start until 3pm, so we spent the morning having a little family breakfast celebration, and then I ran around like a mad woman most of the day cleaning, picking up catering, and driving all the way to Converse for the cake! I was so glad to have Oriental Trading in my back pocket to provide all the plates, cupcake toppers, favors, and favor boxes. It all went perfectly with the theme and couldn’t have been better quality!

For the cupcake toppers, we didn’t decide until after they had been ordered that we were going to do a design on the cupcakes that wouldn’t quite work with toppers. So they made a fun addition to the wraps, fruit tray, and PB&J sandwiches! Can I also just say how nice it is that HEB offers PB&J sandwiches as a catering option? Perfect for a kids party, and the adults can be left to enjoy the wraps on their own!

For the favors, these little ballerina boxes came complete with tutus attached, and we filled each one with ballet slipper lollipops, temporary tattoos, and shimmering pink gumballs! I’m not a huge fan of favor bags that are filled with crap that’s going to fill up the backseat of my car later, so we went simple and straightforward. Hopefully our guests didn’t mind!

Simply Sprinkled made our cake and cupcakes from scratch, and she truly made our vision come to life! We also asked Baked Goodness to weave her magic with some sugar cookies, and I was blown away by her designs! How creative of them both to interweave Cora with ballet slippers and lots of pink. I found the cake topper for the cake on Amazon of all places, and even picked up these balloons that I somehow don’t have a nice picture of, but were a hit! She absolutely loved the entire desserts table, and we didn’t have a single crumb left over!

 

The party secret I had the HARDEST time keeping was our special guests – Amberly and Lauren from the Dance Center of San Antonio! They stopped by to give the girls a quick ballet lesson, and watching Amberly dance a few numbers had us all transfixed! It was quite the sight to see her twirling and spinning in front of our grill. Ha! I will never forget the look on Cora’s face when I told her she is a REAL ballerina. I hope she doesn’t forget that moment either!

    

Can you find the birthday girl in the photo above?! Because I crack up every time I do! We were so blessed to have a plethora of friends, family, and classmates celebrate with us, and it was a madness I truly treasure! I’m not sure how many more birthday parties we will go THIS big on, but it was fun nonetheless! Cora is very, very lucky to have a great group of friends from all over, and it was just cuteness overload to watch them run around the party!

You might notice there is one person noticeably absent from the party. For the first time in Cora’s life, Orlando wasn’t able to make it for the party, even though we tried like mad to find a way. He did, however, get some time off to come in town a few days later, and we had yet another round of celebrations while he was here. Luckily Cora is more mature than most of us, and handled it like a champ. I think she’s stronger than I am some days.

Happy Birthday, Cora Marie. I hope the day was full of light and love, because you certainly bring that to our lives. We love you!

XO,

Mama 

ballerina birthday party

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P.P.S. I received complimentary products from Oriental Trading in order to facilitate this post. Don’t worry though, all opinions are my own!