Her 13th Birthday

"Official Teenager"

I can't believe the time has come. It seems like just yesterday when my oldest child, Jazasia was 3. Now shes 13, an a official teenager! I really miss her at a young age, even though not much has changed with her attitude. :) She's thrilled to be older, one step closer to driving she says. Haha.. OMG!! Not ready for that.

Anyway, for Jaz's party I wanted her theme to feel mature with chic touches but she really wanted to go-cart race with friends. Of course we want her to be happy, so how was I going to make this work? I decided to split the parties. It is a little informal doing that but her birthday is three days before Independence Day and it's always tricky to plan a party around the holiday with people traveling and all. So it seemed right because not everyone could attend since the racing party was the day after Independence Day. We had a special dinner party at our house on her actual birthday in the middle of the week. Luckily it was summer, the weather was great and everything turned out wonderful, Jazasia was ecstatic! 

With the dinner party theme it had to be just right for her. Something she loves and stands out. All I can think of is her favorite color (which is blue).  What can I put with that? Of course, zebra print! We both love it and it's fun! 

 Since we're having two parties I needed to find ways to lower costs but still be fun.  An easy way to have a delightful treat is making chocolate covered marshmallows. 

You don't have to use an electronic chocolate melting pot. You can do it over the stove in a non-stick pot on low/med heat. Make sure you constantly stir so the chocolate doesn't burn.

Dip the marshmallow half way, twisting it all around. I topped it with a chocolate candy.

   I put them aside to cool and added bows before storing them in the fridge. FYI I made these the night before.

I stayed simple when I did the decorations. I added zebra print and blue streamers to the living room ceiling.  I made my own Happy Birthday banner that I put above our dinning table.

I also put up a s'mores station for everyone to enjoy.

On the treat table I put the chocolate covered marshmallows in a green craft foam that I wrapped with tissue paper. I added Oreo cookies, white chocolate covered pretzels and sprees for a pop of color.

I ordered this beautiful 3D Oreo filled cake from https://www.facebook.com/thesweetpod

The final look! For the back ground I wanted to stay with the theme of black and white and used pictures from when Jaz was a baby all the way up till now, with the recent picture in color.

She loved everything, especially the cake!

Birthday candles and one extra for good luck.

Second Party



We had it at a really cool spot http://www.traxxracing.com  

Jazasia was so excited!

I didn't really have to do any decorating since everything is pretty much ready for you. 

 The tables were already lined and had centerpieces but I still wanted to do a treat table for fun. To switch things up I ordered cupcakes from the same person I ordered the cake from https://www.facebook.com/thesweetpod they were awesome!

I had doughnut spare tires. I used a popcorn bucket I got from the dollar store, flipped it upside down and cut a piece cardboard to fit the plate. I wrapped the cardboard with checkered duct tape and found the spare tires image on google.

When I do birthday parties I love putting up pictures of the birthday person. I thought it would be cool to have Jazasia pose as a racer. The vest she's wearing is actually mine and the helmet belongs to her brother (he likes to wear it when he rides his bike).

The treat table! I made the little Happy Birthday sign and brought everything that's on the table, the My Way-Highway sign, the stop light, trophy, cupcake stand and candy vases. I re-wrapped the lollipop stand from the other party with red paper and put checkered duct tape on the vases.

I covered the water bottles with checkered duct tape too. We ordered pizzas had veggies and chips, but I didn't take a picture of those. Haha

A happy daughter, a happy mom :)

The adults had their own race too!

Thanks for checking out our party! Hope I inspired you with these ideas. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or other ideas you would like to share.