Honestly, I shouldn’t have thrown a birthday party for Talitha this year. We were in the middle of moving, and we have a new baby. The weekend right before her birthday was Zianne’s first ballet recital. The weekend after her birthday, my best friend had a baby shower.
I pushed her birthday party out two weeks and then accidentally wrote July rather than June on the invites. It should be a rule that you can’t throw a birthday party if you’ve moved or had a baby in the past 60 days.
Plus there is the fact that she’s two and will never remember the party.
But maybe it’s because I’m an ESTJ and celebrations and traditions with family and friends are a core part of my personality…
Or perhaps it’s because I’ve watched every season of Gilmore Girls way too many times and want to emulate Lorelai’s devotion to celebrating her daughter’s birthday.
Or maybe it’s because Talitha was so excited about her “bug birthday!”
Whatever the reason, Talitha turned two and we celebrated. We left our still-unpacked boxes at home, texted everyone to clarify the date typo, and headed to the park for her Goldbug themed birthday.
In two of Richard Scarry’s books, Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and The Best Lowly Worm Book Ever, there is a tiny, golden bug hidden on every page. Talitha has been obsessed with finding Goldbug since she received one of the books for Christmas, so a few months ago I decided it would the perfect theme for her birthday.
I had a custom Richard Scarry-themed invite made, and then loosely followed a bug theme for the party. To make the celebration a little more feminine, I found the cutest bugs I could on Amazon and also added blossoms to the decor, which mainly included coloring sheets of bugs, flowers, and butterflies set out on the picnic tables. I also cut out a bunch of gold bugs to hide around the park that the kids could find, but once the party got going, we never got around to the game.
I made a simple snack spread of banana muffins, fruit kabobs, and cake batter puppy chow for the 10am festivities. Instead of cake, I made dirt cups with gummy worms to match the outdoorsy theme.
All in all, the party was a blast. Talitha was the first to help herself to food (typical) and played mostly by herself (as usual) while the older kids ran around together. Basically, it was a dream day for our always hungry, sometimes shy, super active Talitha Joy.
