A 'Goodnight Moon' Birthday Party for Finn

I simply cannot believe that my baby has turned two! 

Why does time go so fast? 

*snif*

But he is a wonderful little man.....so full of joy and fun....and the smallest little chatterbox you'll ever meet :) 

In fact, this whole 'Goodnight Moon' idea was his.....I asked him what type of party he'd like, giving him a few suggestions like "A very hungry caterpillar" party, or some of his favourite animals.... and then he piped up..."How bout a 'goodnight room' pahty, mama" :) 

So there you have it.....Goodnight Moon it was! 

Definitely Finny's most-loved little story. So simple and perfect. 

I had a lot of fun crafting away in the evenings, after the boys had gone to bed :)

We are a sort of "early to bed, early to rise" type of family these days, and I really do cherish the quiet evenings. The 6 am start is a bit exhausting, but the evenings really do make it all worth it!

I hung three cork boards on the wall, and pinned up some poster board to make it look like a window.

(I'm keeping these pin boards here so that I can switch up the living room wall without too much hassle...you know how I'm into switching things up all.the.time ) :)

 And all this for this little man.

How could I resist him?? seriously.

I had fun making the invitations. I used a 'Goodnight Moon' image that I found online, and edited in Photoshop. I added a green and yellow striped felt curtain to make it look like the great green room :)

And hiding behind the curtain was Finn! 

He loved this so much.....just couldn't believe that he was in the great green room!

I found a big piece of green wool felt at the thrift shop, and stapled it to a large canvas. I did a very "grade-school" painting of the 'Cow jumping over the moon', and attached it to the canvas, on top of a poster-board frame. The clock was not my favourite "feature", but I made it really quickly one night, and it was just going to have to do. I cut out a little white 'young mouse', and hung up a pair of mittens and socks on a ribbon.  The 'two little kittens' were playing with a ball of yarn, and the 'quiet old lady' was knitting away :)  The 'little toy house' was actually a birthday gift from us to Finn, which he LOVES.

Another somewhat awful painting of the 'three little bears, sitting on chairs' graced our wall.

I made the Finn banner out of poster board (as you can see, poster board was my main decorating supply..so handy that it comes in the perfect colours)!  The striped fabric was found online for under $2/yard, so of course I ordered 9 yards and put it everywhere :) The colour scheme worked well with the book colours.

Not my best work ;)

haha....

whatever. I didn't feel like springing for two cans of spray paint in colours that I'll never use again, so I decided to try my hand at duct taping a lamp. hah. 

Obviously a success. obviously.

I was inspired by this party, and decided to turn our table into a bed for the little bunny. I felt a little strange "tucking" him in, I'll admit :)

And no...this is not all the food we served. haha...bunny food!

I decided to go "old-school" and serve up a roast beef dinner. Believe it or not, it's actually one of the easier meals to make for a crowd. And everyone seemed to enjoy the comfort food :)

The cupcakes were very simple. I sort of ran out of "oomph" after all that crafting! So....I just made a few little toppers, and some white cupcakes with white icing. Done. 

My poor kiddos are on a very strict diet right now (trying to heal Toby's tummy), so I made some very healthy cupcakes for them using bananas, ground almonds, eggs, vanilla and raw honey...and used cream cheese sweetened with honey for the icing.  They LOVED it!! 

Good thing Finny found the "healthy" icing to sneak ;)

I didn't get a chance to take very many pictures during the party, but I just had to include this one of Finny's little friend Hannah because she looks so darn cute.

Finn was completely spoiled with all sorts of very fun gifts. Thank you so much everyone!!

For the favours, I decided to make a pair of mittens for each of Finny's friends to take home.

I know...I know....I'm a glutton for punishment ;)

Surprisingly enough, they were really easy to make.

I bought about 4 wool sweaters at the thrift store, and "felted" them in a hot water wash and hot dryer, to thicken them up, and close the weave of the wool so it wouldn't unravel at the edges.  I cut out mitten shapes in different sizes, then cut out a few little applique designs, and sewed them on the fronts of the mittens. Then I just sewed them together.  Easy peasy....as Finny would say ;)

I put them in my Giggle Sweets boxes, which happened to fit perfectly, and tied them with green twine topped with a monogrammed tag.

This Goodnight Moon banner was all made with poster board as well.....took a little while to make since I had to cut out all of the red stripes (thank goodness for my handy little paper-cutter) :)

Here's little Finn while everyone was singing happy birthday to him!

Pleased with his "TWO CUPCAPES, Momma....TWO CUPCAPES cause I bigguh now, momma...I TWO" :)

I used the fabric to cover my curtains, and it definitely changed the look of the room a little bit.

All of Finn's little friends came wearing their pajamas.....I mean, it is a goodnight story, right? :)

Goodnight stars.....Goodnight air...

Goodnight noises everywhere...... :)