Happy 5th Birthday to Fab Naima!

Did you know that this blog's original name was "FABNAIMA".  My Multiply store is stilll fabnaima even though my store name is Mama.Baby.Love.  I named the blog and store after my daughter Naima who turned 5 years old last week.

Like me, my daughter is a planner.  As early as her 4th birthday, she already had her theme planned for her 5th birthday.  We had the chance to go to Party City and after seeing aisle and aisle of different themes, she decided on Tinkerbell.  I purchased the cups, dishes, balloons and napkins.  Meanwhile, my aunt gave N a whole set of Tinkerbell dolls.  All these Tinkerbell themed items, we stored for 1 year while N excitedly waited for her 5th birthday.



However, since I bought them early, I wasn't able to prepare enough for N's classmates.  When she was in Nursery, they were only 20 in class.  However, in Kindergarten, they were 32.  So my themed eating utensils were not enough.  :( So we decided to improvise and do some D-I-Y instead.

For the cake, I asked Cats of Tazzy Cakes to utilize the fairies and she came up with these cake and cupcakes:


The rainbow cupcakes were included in loot bags for N's classmates.  I love the details of the flowers on the cake!  Since N can't have a party in school, we just prepared some loot bags for her classmates.  When it comes to D-I-Ys, I am all thumbs.  Thanks to the Disney website, I was able to find some Tinkerbell figures to cut-out and stick on the paper bags.  I also asked Stan to design the labels for N's cupcake boxes and loot bags.

lootbags for her classmates

Since there was no food served in school, we couldn't use the Tinkerbell plates and decided to use them at home instead.  My yayas went a step further and formed paper flowers out of the table napkins.   The little girl was most excited to have a party with her cousins.  Happily, even if it was a weekday in December, my siblings obliged and braved the traffic to come to our place.

mini party at home!

our dinner set-up

Tinkerbell Naima and Princess Anya

The kids were supposed to build their gingerbread houses that night, too. But because of the traffic, they arrived later than expected and we didn't have time to do the houses.  After learning from the experiences of some friends, we were able to successfully build the gingerbread house kit on a Thursday.

A happy N building her gingerbread house kit in her holiday finery:
personalized holiday apron and polka dot bow from Mothering Earthlings

December is a really busy season for me.  Aside from preparing Christmas gifts, I have several other celebrations to prepare for as N and E are both December babies.  One down... next: preparing for E's 1st birthday!

How do you prepare for your kids' birthdays? Do you D-I-Y?  Share your favorite D-I-Y resources!