Garden(ing) Party Prep

Can't believe my little girl is almost four. I still remember the ultrasound when they told Nick and I that we were having a girl. I didn't believe it because, at the time, I had eight nephews and only one niece. It's true that seven of the nephews were on my side of the family - which didn't affect our chances at all - but boys just seemed to be in the cards. I grew up with four brothers and one sister and Nick has two brothers and a sister. See? Boys. Well, of course that wasn't the case and I can't imagine a girlier little girl than Abby. We love her so much and I'm so grateful that she's part of our family.

Anyways, Abigail has always loved flowers and spending time gardening with Grandma so a garden party seems like a perfect fit to celebrate her birthday this year. Since this is her first year of preschool, this will be Abby's first party with "school friends" on the invitation list and she couldn't be more excited.

Knowing that the planned activities - decorating pots, planting flowers and creating "button flowers" - require a little DIY and a lot of organization beforehand, I've been prepping as much as possible. Wish me luck because ensuring that the birthday girl and each of her little three and four-year-old friends has a wonderful time seems like it could be a tall order. Not sure. Second on my wish list is a spectacularly clean house for the benefit of all of the parents that will be attending and I think I need even more luck to pull that one off. Here's a sneak peek at the work in progress.

Fifteen terra cotta pots painted with a stripe of black chalkboard paint.

A pot will be labeled for each guest and then they will get to decorate the rest with chalk, even the unpainted part. The chalkboard part will probably hold the chalk better after watering but the kids will have fun anyways.

Abby helped me pick out some buttons for the garden ornaments.

And then she helped me sort them: small, medium and large.

I think they're going to be darling.