happy {little} campers

On Monday we had a camping party to celebrate Elijah's 4th birthday. 

It was SO much fun to plan and put together. But totally exhausting. 

I stayed up the entire night before after being up the night before that with stomach pains and contractions, not to mention moving is just becoming harder & more painful... 

But I still loved doing it all and seeing all my ideas brought to fruition! 

After not throwing a party for 2 years, the party planner bug was reallllllly nagging at me and I was ready for a good project. And I think it all turned out pretty well. :) 

I designed and made all the tags, labels, and invitations mostly using PicMonkey. 

[did you know you can design blank pages on PicMonkey now?? so awesome!!]

That's one of my favorite parts to design the graphics and images. Makes me feel legit, ha. 

For food I tried to keep with the camping theme and had a trail mix bar [with peanuts, M&Ms, marshmallows, and raisins], teddy grahams {for the bears in the woods, obviously}, granola bars, and fruit leather. I also made fruit skewers and a vegetable plate. Cause being outdoors encourages healthy eating habits right?? 

And of course, Elijah got his big chocolate cake! :)

I found these really cute white bottle brush trees at Joann's and then made a small burlap bunting to go on top to match his "Camp Elijah" banner on the table. 

Now we have a ton of chocolate cake left that I can't eat... So Elijah will have a sugar high for a while. 

For activities we had a fishing station set up where the kids got to "fish" for goldfish. 

Adam was a good sport and helped out with all the kids fishing. 

We were laughing cause as adults it doesn't seem like the fishing activity would be that exciting especially because the way it was set up they could totally see what was happening. 

But the kids loved it and were SO excited when it was their turn. 

Simple minds, simple pleasures right?? :) 

I also had a scavenger hunt planned out for them to go and find different things in the park, but it ended up being sooooo ridiculously hot [as you can tell by all the kids' red faces!] and we kind of skipped it. It would have been fun and I saved some for maybe a fun activity to do with Elijah another day. And I love how the handouts turned out. I was so bummed the heat was so bad... 

{I really hope no kids got heat stroke!} 

We also set up a mini campsite scene with a fake, tissue paper fire, a small tent, little chairs, and a sleeping bag. That was another thing that I kind of thought would be a cute visual but underestimated how much the kids really liked it. They had so much fun pretending to camp, roasting fake marshmallows and taking turns in the little tent. It was so cute! 

And at the end of it all, the kids got to take home a goodie bag that had a s'mores kit, "fish bait" gummy worms, a mini compass, and a little flashlight. Pretty fun stuff! 

There were some things I wish I added or did a little differently [or I wish I could have made it cooler!] but all in all I was really happy with how it turned out. And I absolutely couldn't have done it without some wonderful friends who pitched in to help and donate cute decoration items. Because of them I was able to pull it off.  

And Elijah seemed to have a lot of fun and LOVED being able to play with all his friends. Seeing his excitement and huge smile all day {and the days leading up to it} made all that planning and late nights worth it. :)

Happy 4th birthday, E-rock!! 

I will celebrate you any day!