Lyla's 3rd Birthday Bash - Monster Party!!

After a long week of lots and lots of prep, Lyla's birthday party day finally arrived!! We were originally going to have a "Lollipop" themed party, which Lyla thought was great, but we weren't wild about it. Then one day, Lyla and I were reading a book about Monster's and I thought out loud, "What about a monster party?" Lyla's eyes immediately lit up and she said "Yeah, I want a MONSTER party, yeah!" And so we went to work.

Originally I wanted to go simple with this party. Unfortunately, I went to the wrong place for simple ideas... Pinterest. This site completely took me in the opposite direction and helped me find soo many cute "monster party" idea's that were to die for! Anyway, here are all the details of the big day...

The morning of the party, Nate and I were frantically doing some last minute prep. I had some serious frosting difficulties and didn't have a minute to relax or eat. My wonderful husband thought to make me a smoothie while I was working the cake problems out and as I went to take a sip, the whole thing clumped up and fell right on my face! I looked soo pretty :)

Anyhoo, here is the monster cake...

Since our cake only had about 5 cake pops, we had like a million left over. So we decorated those and used them home with the kids as party gifts. And a big thanks to Nate for helping me with those!

Nate did all the decorating with the black icing, which totally completed them!

When the first kids arrived, their first activity was to go to the "Monster Lab" (I am SOOO sad I did not get any pictures of this!!). Basically, all the kids got to pick out a felt puppet to decorate. We had eyes, eyebrows, mouths, shapes, pipe cleaner, etc., and the mom's were there to help them glue it all together with hot glue guns. The kids were all excited that they got to make their own puppet that they could take home as well.

Most the kids with their puppets...

After the Monster Lab, we went into the back yard to play "Hide the Monster". Basically, we had 2 monsters that we hid in the back yard and the kids were supposed to go find the monster. When they found the monster, they were all supposed to scream all the way back to "home base". I think this was one of the highlights of the party. The kids loved being able to scream and run around.

Explaining the game to the kids...

They were supposed to be facing the house with their eyes closed so they couldn't see where we were hiding the monsters. Plus, my backyard is extremely bare so the monsters were ridiculously easy to find.

Screaming back as they found Cookie Monster.

Screaming coming to home base again...

Tagging my hand at "home" and telling me all about the monsters and where they found them.
Next was our "Monster Toss" game.

Nate and I explaining the game...

As it turns out, I should have made more pink bean bags since some girls were upset they didn't have a pink one, haha! Should have known!

I had planned on using this as a photo prop at the party, but totally spaced it. Oh well! At least I got one with Ly.

After the games, we ate lots of pizza and then it was on to presents!

Lyla was so excited for all of her gifts that her friends gave her! She was one spoiled girl!

After presents, it was onto the cake!

Lyla blowing out her candles. I thinks he did a pretty good job of not spitting all over it, too! Haha! :) Also, the frosting on my poor cake started to fall off on part of the side. But my friend Laura made me feel better by saying it made it look more "monsterish". Thanks for the positivity, Laura!

This cake was amazing!! I don't take any credit for it either. Just two awesome recipes that I had at another little girl's birthday party a couple weeks before. When I had it there, I knew that was the recipe I wanted to use for this cake and it was soooo yummy!!
Lyla had such a fun time at her party and with all of those friends of hers! We missed a few other friends that couldn't make it for one reason or the other (plus, her other friends in IL), but we knew they wished they could come.

Lyla LOVED her Cookie Monster backpack (the one we used in Hide the Monster). We got that thing for 5 bucks at the one and only Walmart... great find!

Me and the birthday girl!

And this little chicklett slept throughout the entire party and woke up as the last guests were leaving! Here she is enjoying some leftover pizza.
Anyway, I ended up doing a whole lot more than I originally planned for but all of it was so worth it! I had fun doing the prep, and Lyla had fun helping me with it (especially the bean bags). Plus, sewing those puppets really helped me get comfortable with my sewing machine (only my 2nd time using a sewing machine, ever!) and so now I feel so much more confident using it! I am so happy about that!! And the bottom line was that all had a great time, especially Lyla! Oh, and a BIG thanks to Emily for taking pictures for us!!!!

Happy Birthday Ly!