My Little Ladybug is TWO!

We celebrated Tory's 2nd birthday this past weekend with a festive ladybug party. It's become a yearly tradition for my parents and siblings to visit us at our lake cabin over Labor Day weekend and celebrate Tory's birthday at the same time. For this year's theme, I decided to have a "ladybug" party in honor of one of Tory's favorite books, Ladybug Girl.

Since the guest list was small with only our immediate family in attendance, I handmade the birthday party invitations. They turned out adorably, if I do say so myself. Complete with moving wings and all! Taking inspiration from Pinterest, I cut circles from red and white cardstock to make the ladybug's body and wings, then cut out smaller circles for the ladybug spots.

I also decided to make ladybug outfits for Tory and her cousins to wear during the party. I ordered Tory's personalized birthday t-shirt here and have wonderful things to say about this Etsy shop. My package was shipped to my old mailing address by mistake and the shop owner went out of her way to track down and re-ship the t-shirt to me in time for the party. My mother-in-law made the girls adorable red and black tutus and I completed the ladybug look with matching antennaes I made using headbands, pipe cleaners and red pom pom balls hot-glued on top. It just so happened to be the Nebraska Cornhusker's first football game of the season on Saturday, so Brooke and Neeley wore Husker shirts with their tutus. I think the girls could wear their tutus every Saturday to support our favorite team!

No birthday party is complete without a delicious food spread. My mom and sister helped me prepare pulled pork sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit kabobs, "ants on a log" celery sticks, ladybug crackers, "ladybug spots" (licorice bites) and red velvet ladybug cupcakes for our family to munch on during the celebration. I made food tags for each item using my color printer, black cardstock backing and ladybug stickers.

I bought these ladybug toppers for the red velvet cupcakes which Tory loved. Once she got a taste of singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out her candles, we had to do it at least a dozen times. Good thing I had many more (less slobbery) cupcakes for everyone else to eat!

Keeping the kids' ages in mind (6, 2 and 1), I kept the party games simple with pre-printed ladybug coloring pages and a "Pin The Spots on the Ladybug" activity I made from poster board and cardstock. Brooke (age 6) liked the coloring pages best, and all the girls enjoyed sticking spots on the ladybug again and again. 

I'm so thankful our family was there to celebrate this ladybug's special day. Happy birthday, Tory girl! Here's to a wonderful year ahead.