Weston turned 2: alphabet style

My baby boy turned 2 years old last week.  I can't begin to describe how quickly it is going for this little boy.  I think Ethan's first 2 years seemed to go slightly slower (still quick, but not warp speed like the past 2 years have gone!).  We celebrated his birthday on Friday as a small family by going to Sky Walk Trampoline Park (Totally Awesome!) and then naps.  Saturday was the party where we invited family and some friends.  

 I love throwing parties and this year my wonderful husband gave me a budget. . . a small one.  I had to throw a party for Weston for 100 dollars.  Yep.  I was incredibly frustrated at first because I didn't want him to grow up thinking that his older brother got all the cool parties and he didn't (although his first birthday was awesome, if you ask me).  But then I got started, made a plan, and started getting ready.  And believe it or not, I came out at about 120 dollars, including food.

I made this W for the front door with the help of my husband.  He cut out a w out of a diaper box and I covered it in red tissue paper that we had laying around.

I loved the table.  I bought a stack of fun paper from JoAnns when they were on sale for half off (best deal. . . ever!) and that played the center for it.  I used my cricut and cut out every single letter (I must have messed up on o, because we didn't even know it was missing until we were hanging it up and at 1:00 am, we just wanted to go to bed).  For food, I did caramel popcorn, Funfetti popcorn, ABC cookes (Trader Joe's), Chips and Guac, spinach dip, and artichoke dip, plus a veggie platter, some candy and goldfish.

I went simple with the drinks and did lemonade and iced tea.  I had some Subway Art (check out my Pinterest Board, Let's throw a Party) and a questionaire that I printed at Costco and framed with some IKEA frames I had laying around.

The cupcakes were chocolate with a ganache glaze and then a whipped cream frosting topped with alphabet sprinkles (I found them here).

The W is a cardboard one from JoAnns.  It only ended up costing about 3 dollars because they were on sale the day I bought them.  I then used paper from the same pack that I did the banner with and cut strips and modged podged them on to the W.

I made the W is for Weston digital art using my Creative Memories software and then printed an 8x10 at Costco.

Favors were fun crayons.  All I did was buy a large box of crayons from Target and bagged them up in cello bags and decorated them with decorated tape (I love this stuff!).  They ended up being a big hit!

To give the kiddos something to do, I bought foam letters and let them glue them to construction paper and made some kool-aid play dough for them to cut letters out with.  

And here is my sweet, little 2 year old!  Happy Birthday to him!

He did a great job blowing out the candles!

Thanks for letting me share my baby's birthday with you.  I still can't believe that I did it for about 120 dollars.  Ethan has already picked his theme and I have already started getting ideas. . . because I have to stick to a low budget once again.  Enjoy your 3 day weekend!  I have a yummy treat coming soon. . . don't worry. :)