Adding Special Touches for a Special Boy!

We celebrated Graydon's 2nd birthday about 3 weeks ago.  We celebrated with family and friends - and enjoyed this exciting time with our sweet toddler!  When it comes to planning parties - I absolutely LOVE party planning.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I could almost make this a full-time job.  I have so much fun in organizing, planning, and choosing each and every detail - you might say I'm even obsessed! - oh well.
For each party, there are a few things that go at the top of my priority list.
Here are just a few must-haves when making your party special.

1) Choose a theme.  You must have a theme for each party in order to plan your party around.  Graydon absolutely loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates (a cartoon on Disney), so we chose a pirate theme to go along with this favorite show.

2) Choose an invitation or make your own.  This year I made Graydon's invitations.  I totally took a picture right off of Pinterest and copied it!  I was able to create this invitations for FREE (my husband was so thrilled!)  I typed, printed, brushed with tea, and then burned the edges of each invitation - perfect for our theme.

3) Choose an awesome cake!  (or cupcakes or both)  I again found a cake on Pinterest and had a friend of mine make Graydon's cake this year.  I was absolutely in love with his cake!  and it was very tasty!

4) Add some of your own special details.  Homemade glass bottles to drink from, pirate cookies & cupcakes, and homemade treat bags were just a few of the things we did to make Graydon's party extra special.

5) Choose some fun activities for kids.  We did have several of Graydon's cousins at his party this year so we did need a few games/activities for them to enjoy.  Kiddos enjoyed walking the plank, digging for pirate treasure, and making their own binoculars.

Overall - I think Graydon's party was a huge success!