"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" birthday party! {finally...}

I wasn't sure I wanted to do a 3rd birthday party for Abby. Then I got an idea for a theme. Then I searched Pinterest for that theme. Now I'm wishing her birthday wasn't still three months away...

But I got to thinking, did I ever make a post about Abby's 2nd birthday party??

Nope. Oops.

It happened about the same time as my big blog overhaul, plus I was 8 months pregnant, so the big party post never happened.

So here you have it! Nine months later... :-P

Feel free to pin away!
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I decided to theme the party around one of Abby's current favorite books -- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. When searching Pinterest, I was surprised by the lack of ideas specific to the book series (see what I did find here). Luckily I figured the kids were too young to really enjoy any structured activities, so I just used some decorating and food ideas.

I've been taking pictures of Abby, in the same corner of the same couch, every month (I stopped at 2 years -- I'll probably just do yearly now). So those had to go up to show how she's grown!

Color-wise, I chose to go with the green, white, and brown of the book as well as pink to make it a little more girly.

The print-out of the book cover I found via Google images. The 5 books were a box set that Abby got for Christmas. I found the mouse for a dollar at a yard sale (that's actually what convinced me to go with this theme!). Add some homemade chocolate chip cookies and a milk station -- and the cake of course, more on that in a minute -- and voila.

We ended up putting ice-filled balloons in the tub to keep the milk cold (from this pin).

"Accent Cookie Dough" font -- printed with dark brown ink, lightly colored in with colored pencil.

Life is Good "Smart Cookie" t-shirt. My one real splurge. :) Although it was big on her then, and fits her well now, so we've gotten lots of use out of it!

Abby had 4 guests at her party -- 3 girls about her age, and a little boy who was 2 months old at the time, the son of my best friend, so they had to come too. :) 

Our only activities were free-play with Playdough, and blowing bubbles outside.

We were SO disappointed in the weather -- for the first weekend in June we were hoping for sunshine and the chance to splash around in the lake. But it was cold and rainy -- in fact I remember it being the last measurable rain for the majority of the summer (2012 was a really bad drought).

Oh and Daddy had to show Abby how to fly the kite she got for her birthday. (shortly after this picture was taken, Abby couldn't hold on any longer and the kite took off. Rocky jumped in the lake up to his knees to save it. What a good Daddy. :)

And finally we had CAKE. This was THE most amazing cake EVER. 

The secret?

Cookie dough (egg-less) in the middle.

(yes I made those photos extra-large so you could drool over them)

Oh my goodness. Everyone raved about it, and for good reason. I found the recipe here, and just used a box mix for the yellow cake. Served it with ice cream. The perfect end to our cookie party!

Now I'm so excited for this year's party -- the kids will actually be old enough for some games and crafts! I can't wait!! (and I promise I'll try to get that recap post up sooner than 9 months later ;-)