Birthday Party: Flamingos & Pineapples

Birthday Party: Flamingos & Pineapples

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

One Big Family Event

Our kiddos all have birthdays around the same time of year, and throwing one big family party with the grandparents has been our go-to every summer. Everyone travels to town for the weekend, and we celebrate with lots and lots of food and time together!

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Birthday Party Decor

As everyone is driving in to town, I like to go ahead and prep the party table as much as possible.

I arrange the decor and set out all the containers, platters, etc. I plan to use for food.

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Whenever I put together a table scape, I like to wrap empty boxes and use them to give the decor some height. This is a really inexpensive way to make your table pop! Leading up to the big day, I typically save a few Amazon Prime boxes (Diaper boxes work well, too!) and then I use a pretty roll of wrapping paper (something that matches my theme/color scheme) to wrap the large boxes and photo prints to add a personalized touch.

This year? Beach photos!

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Other items for this celebration were gathered from Party City, Dollar Tree…

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

…Michaels, Home Goods, and yard sales! Yes, yard sales! I find all kinds of themed items when out shopping on Saturday Mornings!

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Birthday Party Menu:

Meat & Cheese Hors d’oeuvres

Pimento Cheese & Dippers

Shredded Pork BBQ

Baked Beans

Baked Mac & Cheese

A Variety of Desserts

Birthday Party Desserts

How perfect are these Flamingos & Pineapples? Yes, they’re cake pops by Donna with Poppers Right Sized Bites! If you’re in the Carolinas, you are going to want to check out her creative cake pops and perfectly perfect custom cookies.

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Along with the cake pops, I served fresh pineapple as well as pineapple cupcakes. These cupcakes were the only thing I made for the party! (More on that later!) The icing for the cupcakes? I’ve got to tell you about it. You simply mix together 1 container of Cool Whip, 1 package of Vanilla-Flavored Instant Pudding Mix, and 1 can of drained crushed pineapple. Oh my. WARNING: After tossing this mixture together, you are going to want to sit down and eat it…all of it…straight from the container…with a spoon…or with your fingers. Whichever you prefer. 😉

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Annnnnd just in case we didn’t have enough sweet treats on hand for the celebration, our party also included Chick-fil-a’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies. If you’ve been around this space for long, you know the story behind this special tradition, but if you’re new around here, hop over here and here for a little glimpse into why our family eats so many cookies.

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

In addition to the tablescape, I like to add a few other little sentimental touches. In the past, we’ve had a slideshow of pictures scrolling on our TV screen, but this year, we put up a little banner of photos of the kids and set out our most recent Family Yearbooks – Shutterfly albums I like to put together each year – each one complete with pictures of the kids and memories I’ve recorded. (These annuals are my Christmas gift to my family each year.)

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Birthday Party Gifts

With the party usually being right smack-dab in the middle of all of the birthdays we are celebrating, we let present-time be all about what the grandparents have brought for each of the kids. Our crew has so much fun opening their gifts – with this time feeling a good bit like Christmas morning!

While the grandparents are here, we like to gift them with a little something, too – usually a framed photo of the kids!

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

David and I save any gifts we have our kids for the morning of their actual birthday – days where Daddy stays home with us, we cancel school, and we celebrate with a special Family Day where we do the favorite things of that particular birthday kiddo: their favorite foods, their favorite activities, their favorite outings, etc. These days are always low-key and sweet leaving this mama feeling extra sentimental about celebrating life.

Happy Birthday to my sweet late summer babies! To date, my swollen self has waddled and sweated through four different Carolina summers – and you were worth every second of the swelling. 

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

May you always love life and love each other…never forgetting the Giver of Life and the plans He has for you. 

Quick Tips for Birthday Party Planning:

I love being creative and putting together sweet parties for my little ones, but I also like to think of resourceful ways to make it possible for me to actually be present and enjoy the time with our family. After all, that’s the most important part.

Quick Tip #1: Choose your theme in advance – way in advance – giving yourself lots of time to keep an eye out for items you want to use in your setup. This saves me loads of time and stress (and money!). I have plenty of time to gather and organize my supplies which gifts me with the chance to actually enjoy setting everything up before everyone arrives (usually after bedtime the night before or during my kids’ rest time just before the main event).

Quick Tip #2: The week of the birthday party, I place a pickup order with Sam’s Club. This makes it easy to drive thru and pick up all of the food I’m going to need for the party. I do very little (if any) food prep for their birthday party.

Quick Tip #3: With family staying in town for the weekend, I keep all of the other meals simple as well. For example, breakfasts include muffins and fresh fruit set out on the counter buffet-style. Another mealtime might include pizza being delivered to the house from our favorite local spot. I want to spend the weekend enjoying time with family – not prepping food.

Quick Tip #4: Go easy on yourself – especially if you’re very pregnant! ha! I’ve already admitted that I do very little food prep for this event. I’ve also explained that this year, we did a photo banner instead of a slide show. Now, here is where I tell you that for this particular birthday party, I also gave myself a little pass on the invites, etc. I typically like to put together my own hand-made invitations. It’s something I’ve always loved to do – and since I usually only need five or six invites, it’s fun – never overwhelming. This year, I kind of sort of not really made my own invitations. The truth? I used Shutterfly and edited the text fields with our info. ha!

Birthday Party Invitations & More

I ordered invitations as well as coordinating address labels AND thank-you notes!

Yes, I’m old-fashioned like that – I think kids writing thank-you notes is a really, really important something we need to make happen!

Invitations:

*Note: Flamingos are not native to Hawaii, so the whole “ALOHA” thing might bother you, but that can be edited – or you can roll with it…like we did…because at the time of this party, I was eight months pregnant.

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Thank You Cards: 

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Address Labels for Both:

Birthday Party: Flamingos and Pineapples by This Little Home of Mine

Want to see more of our birthday parties? You can check them out here.

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