the birthday girl...almost!

We're counting down to the big day around here...
Mikayla's Big Day!

Just 8 more days until we have a 3-year old. Eek!

This is a photo collage I created to send out to family.
I love being able to take a glance all at once and see how much she's changed in just one year.
{click on picture to view larger}


Mikayla is so excited for her birthday to come and this year she has gotten really into "making a list". She'll see something on a commercial and say, "I want to put that on my birthday list." The list all started when we were at Target a month or so ago and she was busy playing with THIS and I wanted to hurry her along so I said that maybe she could write that on her birthday list (silly thing to say when we had already purchased her birthday gifts). Well, ever since that day I have not stopped hearing about it! Thankfully, I passed the idea onto the in-laws and they were all for it, so I picked it up a couple weeks ago and it was $20 cheaper than it had been a week before! However, as the list keeps getting longer, I continue to remind her that she won't be receiving everything on her list.

The family party is this weekend!

Here are the invites I had been keeping "under wraps"
until everyone got them in the mail.

It's going to be pretty casual since you know...it's family and all, but I wanted some sort of a theme, so I went with a little bit of "sweetness" and made these lollipop invitations. I saw this idea featured on the new party planning blog Creative Parties & Showers (where I was featured about a week ago with this baby shower!).

I LOVE all of the other ideas shared in that same birthday post, but I think I'll save these for another party down the road...too little time to get it all together like I would want to without making me go completely crazy! But I will most likely be using at least a few of the ideas shown in her pictures. They're too cute not to!

Lots to do and time's running out!