First Bday Photoshoot!

As I may have mentioned before, the theme for Livia’s first birthday party is “Livia’s Onederland” (inspired by Alice in Wonderland, but no cookie-cutter stuff).
The party will be a “garden tea party” with a whimsical feel. 
Two of the songs from the Disney movie (and my main source of  that I love are “A World of My Own” and “A Golden Afternoon”.  Livia loves nature, so there will be lots of floral decor (real and fake). My favorite part of the song “World of my own” says “All the flowers would have very extra special powers, they would sit and talk to me for hours”.   😀
The part of the “Golden Afternoon” song that I love is “you can learn a lot of things from the flowers, especially in the month of June”… June is Livia’s birthday month..how perfect! 😀
I’m coming up with a bunch of fun kid avtivities for the party that go with the theme… definitely sensory,something cool and messy they can get their hands into! 

On Saturday, I picked up two tutus from “Giggles and Wiggles”,  (my go to place for tutus and bows)!  We did a Queen of Hearts photoshoot that we will use for the party invitations. She also took a few pics in her Alice inspired tutu, but we are redoing them this weekend.

(My parents have the perfect house for this theme!!!)

I still have lots of crafting to do (I’m DIY-ing most of it) , but I know that once it comes together it’ll be amazing.:D:D:D

Livia’s New Discovery Area!

 These plastic bins once held all of my “frequently used” beauty/hair products. A few weeks ago, Livia discovered them and decided they would be fun to play in. It wasn’t a problem until she started getting good at picking up tiny bobby pins and trying to eat eyeshadow. Getting ready in the morning was becoming a HUGE challenge because I was constantly stopping to redirect her. No matter how many times I’d put a different toy in front of her, she would crawl RIGHT back to my bins, even pulling them over a few times. 

So I came up with an idea to make us both happy.

I spent yesterday emptying out a closed cabinet (it was FULL of old hair/makeup stuff) and I moved all of my new hair/makeup stuff there. I transformed the bins into a play/discovery area for her! She loves “real life things” (anything that isn’t a toy), so I filled it with some every day things that I thought she’d enjoy (some of which I found in the cabinet! Here is what I used: 

1) An old jewelry box with 3 levels. It doesn’t come apart, each level kind of just swings open. Lots of fun!

2) Large plastic curlers. These curlers are too large to fit into MY mouth (believe me, I tried), so they’re safe! They are colorful, and she can stack them inside each other.

3) A shaker! I used one of her many bottles and filled it with purple rice (I dyed the rice). Covered the bottle top with masking tape.

4) A plastic rattle/chain toy she likes.

5) A foam ornament holder. I cut it to make it a better size for her.

6) FLEXI-RODS (for hair)! I am so glad I came up with this idea. They’re very bendy, they make cool noises when you bang them together…endless fun. By far her FAVORITE thing in the box! I taped each end because the plastic parts on the ends were kind of iffy.

7) A small wicker basket. She loves the texture! Eventually she will start to put things in the basket and take them out. 🙂 (more fun!)

8) A teething ring.

I also threw a silk scarf in there.

To keep the area fun and exciting, I’ll take things out and add new things over time.

I put a cute little sign up so it’s officially her area. 🙂 (I know, I’m such a teacher).

So far, this area is a huge success! It was great to see her SO happy and having SO much fun. I could tell that she felt like she was ‘exploring’ and not just playing with toys. She was smiling, laughing really hard…she just didn’t know what to do with herself! 🙂 I finished it right before her bedtime, so she didn’t have much time to play with it…pics of her playing will come today! 🙂