A Fairy Garden Party

Like many new parents, first birthday’s around here tend to be a little over the top. This is clearly not for the child, as she or he will really never recall this day, or even care if this party included everyone you know or just mom and dad.

When my daughter turned one I may have got a little too excited. Her birthday was in February. I started planning in October. Yes, that’s right! October. Four months before the big day! But we actually had her big party around Easter as we waiting until we flew back home for the holidays. So I had almost 6 whole months of planning this party.

I did have a small party at home in Burlington with a few friends to celebrate her official birthday. I kept the theme the same so I was able to use some of the party accessories twice.

I quickly decided on a theme (which I now regret that I didn’t wait until she was older as Tinkerbell is now a favourite of hers). Her first birthday was a Fairy Garden Party. You can still do this theme if you have a child’s birthday in winter. Anyone who knows the story of Tinkerbell and fairies understands that they are preparing for spring in the winter.

I even had a story in the invitation with a cute poem explaining all the details. Here's a copy of the invitation.

If you want to do something similar, this is the wording I used:

Royal Celebration
In the hush of winter beneath glistening snow Enchantment and merriment mingle below. 

Deep within the garden under canopy of flowers The fairy kingdom gathers to await the hours. 

With glittering costumes and delicate wings, gentle fairies frolic, make music and sing. 

Fairies take flight, get ready to have fun. For our sweet Isabella is turning the Big1! 

Wishes come true by the King’s proclamation 
As dancing fairies gather to make exclamation: “There’s nothing as magical, lovely and grand 
As a royal celebration in Fairy Land!”

Garden Attire
Garden girl fairies, wear your fairy best. A tutu will do, or a pretty fairy dress. 

White or pink, violet or blue. Wings of all colours will await you. 

And let’s not forget the garden bug boys. We need Grasshoppers & Bees to make some noise. 

Or fly with us to Never Never Land. We invited Hook, the Lost Boys & even Peter Pan.

This is the birthday girl's dress. We had special wings just for her too.

The good thing about planning this in October was that I went out to buy costumes and accessories after Halloween for a fraction of the price. It pays to think ahead. I also lucked out and found lots of garden accessories that started coming out right before Easter.

The birthday girl still learning to balance when walking.

All the kids came dressed up. Even the boys dressed up as pirates. I made sure to invite Hook, Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I had a table just for all the accessories where the kids picked out their wings, wands, hooks, swords, etc when they walked in.

We had a special cake just for the birthday girl, as smashing of the cake is a must for a one year old birthday party!

To keep the kids entertained we set up lots of arts and crafts. They decorated flowers and butterflies to help prepare for spring. They also decorated their very own flower pots.

I made these pots out of yogurt containers. They held all the markers and paint brushes. My daughter still has them. We use them as containers for her arts and craft supplies.

And every kid was sent home with a loot bag filled with garden fairy accessories! As always, we had each loot bag customized based on his or her age. Flower seeds where also included for the kids to plant in their flower pots that they decorated at the party.

My little boy is just three months old and now this has me thinking….. what theme shall I do for his big party! I'll have to check out momstown's Birthday Ideas on the blog for some themes that could work for a one year old! Stay tuned until next spring to find out what theme I went with!

momstown Winnipeg Birthday Bash!

August will be a BIG month for momstown and you're invited to celebrate with us. Each chapter is hosting a children's birthday party, open to the public, complete with Birthday activities and crafts, special guests, loot bags and more! So that will be 17 birthday parties across Canada, so fun and exciting!

momstown Winnipeg will be having our Birthday Bash to celebrate our 'Birth' on August 14th from 9am to Noon at the Children's Museum! Kids can explore musical instruments and play some music with Kindermusik Discovery! Dee Dee the Clown will be performing to make the kids laugh and doing face painting!  And momstown will have crafts and games! We'll also have food, cake and so much more! Our theme in August is music, so be prepared to shake those maracas! You're kids are also free to explore the newly renovated Children's Museum!

momstown Winnipeg wants you to remember this exciting Birthday Bash! You can have your child's photo taken with Creative Photojournalism at our BIG launch party!  

And what's a birthday party without loot bags filled with goodies for the whole family!

We'll also have lots of 'presents' to raffle off, like a Little Tikes Mini Sports Coupe, Clementine Art, Teething Bling, a $25 Loblaws gift card, Greenworks Cleaning Prize Pack, Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer, a Lunch Cooler bag with products from Life Choices Foods, a ThermoMaster Spatula from Maple Leaf Foods, Norwex and lots more!!!!

Our Winnipeg party has now reached capacity but if you wish to be added to our waitlist please email me at info.winnipeg@momstown.ca.  

Can't make it to our party? Join us on August 18 for our Facebook Birthday Fan Party! This virtual party is to celebrate our 4th Birthday with momstown.ca!! It starts at 7pm Winnipeg time and all our awesome fans across Canada are welcome to join in on the fun! Click here to register!

Twitter fans can also join in on the fun! Because two parties isn't enough, we're throwing a Twitter Party!!! Join us on August 10, along with momstown National for a Twitter Party. We'll be giving away loads more prizes and having a blast chatting with moms across Canada! Party starts at 8 pm Central time! Follow our hashtag #momstownbd4.   

And be sure to follow me on twitter @momstownWpg! Hope to see you there!

Want to stay in the loop of events like this? momstown members are always the first to know about events around town. Join today! 

Tales for Tots go to the Beach!

This month our Tots went on an imaginary trip to the beach! Learning all about sandcastles, fish, and playing with sand. 


Each month we have a themed curriculum from momstown. This month was At the Beach and to go along with that theme we read the book The Sandcastle Contest. This is a classic from Robert Munch and the kids really enjoyed it! If you missed this event, here's a recap of the book. 

A big thank you to our sponsor Scholastic for providing us with not just one but a second book to give away to one lucky tot! Congratulations to Maisie who won the book!

After reading the book we gathered to make some fun crafts. We had crafts for kids of all ages.

The younger ones enjoyed making art using glue and sand, while the older ones made sea creatures and fish bowls. 

Join us at next month's Tales for Tots where we'll be making some music!

Pudding Party Playdate

Need a fun, inexpensive playdate to do this summer? Have a Paint Your Body With Pudding Playdate!! We had our first ever pudding party playdate with some momstown mama's in Winnipeg a few weeks back. The kids had a blast and you could definitely tell which parents were the clean bees of the group! There was a lot of laughing going on and lots of licking!

It's super easy. All you need is pudding, food colouring (or you can use kool-aid), paint brushes, and a whole lot of water! Kids got to paint their bodies with pudding. I took several flavours and used food colouring to make different colours of 'paint'. Vanilla works the best when making different colours with the food colouring.

Set up everything outside (as it will get messy). I found it was easy for the kids to sit at the picnic table where I set up some bowls of paint.

 

 

Each kid also got their own individual bucket of paint (aka: Snack Packs!) to eat... I mean 'paint' their bodies. Okay, let's face it, they were pretty well eating out of it!!!

I set up the kiddie pool and the water table for the kids to clean up in. The pool looked pretty gross by the end of the party!

It's a great event for kids of all ages. It's safe enough for babies and the older kids got really into it!

Most importantly, make sure you invite kids who enjoy cleaning! We had a few helpers that helped me clean off the tables and the deck afterward. There was pudding everywhere!!!!

Thanks to momstown Burlington for giving me this idea. My daughter attended her first pudding party last summer while we were living out in Burlington. Pudding party playdates are a momstown standard, so you'll for sure see this event again next year! It's a fun, inexpensive playdate that anyone can host this summer. But I highly recommend you take this playdate outside!

Honey Tour Field Trip

Last weekend a bunch of us momstown moms went on a field trip with our families to Marg's Strawberry Patch in Lorette.

We learned about where honey came from, saw the beehives and even saw the beekeeper hard at work in her ultra-protective outfit. After the honey tour we got to see some of the plants and trees that Marg's Strawberry Patch was growing, and learned which plants were growing what.

We also had a chance to see their working windmill. After that we stopped to have a picnic lunch and the kids played in the play yard. We even managed to plant seeds before the rain came.

We ended the day with some sampling of honey and of course most of us left with some honey that we purchased for ourselves. Yummy! Store bought honey does not compare!

Playdates Around Town

What a week it's been. momstown Winnipeg is in full gear now and we've had lots of events over the last two weeks. This is just the start! We've had playdates, met up at the park, visited the Manitoba Museum, had a breakfast date at Cora's and went to cheer on the babies at Four on the Floor baby crawling races at Kildonan Place Shopping Centre.

Here's a look around town.......

Park Playdate at St. Vital Park

New Member meetup at Cora's. 13 moms came on out!

Toddlers came on over to wash their cars!

Playdate for the 0 to 12 month babies.

momstown moms meeting up at the mall.

Cheering on the babies crawling at Four on the Floor races at KP Mall.

Proud daddy of the fastest baby in Winnipeg!

 Moms are flocking to momstown. Word is getting out and the group is growing by the minute. Want to come on out and play with us? We have a 4 week trial going on until July 20! You can check out the interactive message board and join in on the fun events going on during your trial. Register here.

Tales for Tots Playdate

This momstown mama has been busy planning and attending playdates in Winnipeg! momstown is now in full operation and moms are joining from all over the city. There is definitely a need for moms to connect and get out of the house and join mom groups and playdates with their kids.

Last month our theme was Construction. We had our Tales for Tots at Sir John Franklin Community Centre. Here we read Hot Rod Hamster by Cynthia Lord. In this story the Hamster builds a cool hot rod. What I really like about this book is that it engages the kids, asking them to choose the type of car, the parts, tires and flames that they would choose for the Hamster! We got all the kids involved and they knew exactly what the perfect car for Hamster would be!

This cutie wanted to be a construction worker!

A big thank you to our sponsor Scholastics Canada for providing us with this book to read. They also gave us a second book to giveaway. The winner of that book was Kayla, who promises to share it with her big sister! Congratulations Kayla!

After we read the book, we had arts and crafts, like 'D is for Dump Truck'.

And we had sensory play too, using coffee, oatmeal, and beans to decorate construction trucks, or as my daughter calls them "mighty machines."

Looks like a playdate that your kids would like? Sign up and check out our calendar. We have Tales for Tots once a month. Hope to see you at our next Tales for Tots.