It’s official. My first baby girl is two years old. I know it’s a cliche, but time really does fly when you’re watching your babies grow up. I swear I was just bringing her home from the hospital. Now she’s a full-blown toddler, with a personality all her own. Savor every minute y’all — babies don’t keep.
We decided to have a small family party to celebrate our newly-two-year-old. With COVID-19 still ruining plans across the world, keeping it to family and keeping it at home was a must. But my girl deserved to be celebrated, so we went full taco bar style with fiesta decorations and dressed to mark the occasion. To get more details and links for some of the decorations I used click here for the party planning post.
I tend to only decorate one or two main areas of the house when we have a party. It’s just too much to do it all, so this time I focused on the dining room, since it is centrally located downstairs (see our current house tour here) and our living room is pretty much full of infant and toddler junk at this point anyway. We blew up a bunch of balloons in tons of colors and clustered them up the stairs and around the room. We hung paper fans and paper poufs and anything colorful I could get my hands on. I made a sort of photo backdrop with a “Taco TWOsday” balloon banner on one wall and covered our table in bright colors, a serape-style table runner and some mini taco piñatas I found at Walmart.
We also dressed for the occasion – Amelia had a colorful party outfit, baby Adeline wore an adorable onesie that said “training for taco Tuesday,” I had a “Mamacita” tee, and my husband had one that said “Nacho average dad.” The big kids wore metallic, colorful taco-themed tattoos – Coral even had piñatas on her cheeks!
I aimed to keep the menu pretty simple, since I was working a 10 hour shift the day before the party. I had a taco and nacho bar with taco-seasoned ground beef, crockpot salsa shredded chicken, black beans and refried beans, sautéed peppers and onions, as well as queso, shredded cheese, lettuce, salsa, olives, jalapeños, sour cream, fresh guacamole (made by my mom), rice and of course, taco shells, soft tortillas and tortilla chips. As a special request, I asked my sister to make her awesome Mexican Street Corn dip, too. Honestly it ended up being quite the spread, and we had TONS of leftovers.
The cake was a Hayley Harrison specialty. I say that as a joke, because I am not, nor will I ever be, a baker or cake decorator. My husband used three boxes of funfetti cake mix and make 4 layers the day before her party – just followed the directions but substituted greek yogurt for eggs since Amelia is allergic. The morning of the party I started decorating. I purchased some pre-made buttercream frosting in five or six different colors and did my best to make it look like it belonged at a taco themed fiesta – I think it turned out alright! More importantly, it tasted good and didn’t give anyone food poisoning. ***pats self on back***
I’d say the party was a hit. This was the first time Amelia has ever really shown interest in opening gifts and understanding that the toys were new presents for her, and she was so excited! A few of my personal favorites she received: The “BRC” (or “big red car” for those of you not intimately familiar with The Wiggles like we are), a latch board, LEGO Duplo (she’s obsessed now), and a potty!
For now, I’ll leave you with these pictures we took to celebrate my beautiful two-year-old the day after her party. Until next time!
