Every year around Jake’s birthday, the sunflowers are in bloom and I love it so much! There’s a field that I pass by everyday when I pick him up from school that is full of them and it inspired my color scheme for his party this year. We picked a bunch for centerpieces and prayed like crazy they would stay beautiful for party time. Sadly, that sunflower field will be replaced by new houses soon 😦
Look at us in 2014 when we went on a sunflower picking trip over by our health club…only 4 years ago but he looks like a baby!
Since this is a BIG birthday…becoming a TEEN…I wanted to make sure Jake got to do something fun and special. He first suggested golf (shocker!). We decided to keep brainstorming since he had already done that theme twice. So then he picked “tubing” at the lake. Well, that’s super tricky when you don’t own a boat and your birthday is in October! We investigated it fully, but eventually had to settle for a beach party at Lake Quivira. For the record, he did get a round of golf in!
After the lake theme was signed off on by my cute little client (i.e. my handsome son who is now a big 7th grader, has braces, and growing into mens sizes), I went to work on pulling it together and prayed for acceptable weather.
I gave him a few choices on cake and invitations design and I was so happy he actually answered my question.! That’s really asking a lot of a teenage boy! I found PPJ shop on Etsy and she created some designs for me that were perfect. I was super short on time that I couldn’t do it myself. Between multiple golf tournaments, soccer, baseball, a sick kiddo, and 2 homecomings, I was lucky I wasn’t curled up in a ball in the corner crying out for help!
So the weather was predicted to be 80 and sunny (which would be really lucky this time of year) but that didn’t really pan out for us. We made the best of it and had a blast! We ate BBQ (Jake’s favorite), played sand volleyball, and a few brave souls jumped in the lake.
I asked Morgan to take few pics for me and wouldn’t you know that she would take a bunch of selfies 😉
Jake received lots of funny cards, clothing (he likes to look nice!) and my friends teased me that I need to face the facts that he’s growing up and needs bigger clothes!, and of course, gift cards for the playstation and Casey’s. You know…teenage boy stuff! Plus we got him a new golf bag AGAIN, I swear we just got him one like a second ago!
My family is awesome and helped me set all this up, tear it all down, and my dad chopped me a bunch of wood for my centerpieces…that he now wants to charge rent for if anyone wants them for party decor! 😉 They’re pretty cute!
So happy we had family and friends to celebrate this special occasion with – what a blast! Except I could’ve done without the bees…they were swarming our party! And I still had a bee in my van the next day! Check out this one hovering around Jake’s ear…
If you want to view all of my pics, you can access them on Shutterfly with this link…
Happy Birthday Jakey, we love you so much!
conleycrew 