"Noon" Years Eve Birthday Party

The craziness of December has come and gone (as has January and February)! Can you believe it is already 2015? Yikes!

Poor Lizzie .. she's my third child AND she was born in December... she is never going to have an all-out-pinterest-planned birthday party! The end of the year is crazy for us (as well as most people I know) - we (1) travel out of state for either Thanksgiving or Christmas each year, (2) we have our annual Christmas Cocktail party at the house, (3) there's the dozens of Christmas activities we try to squeeze in before (4) the big mans visit, all culminating in (5) an end of the year activity of some sort, and now (4).... poor 3rd child's birthday has to get squeezed in.

For the past few years, we have gotten together with a bunch of friends for a "Noon" Years Eve party at a park. With the craziness of this year, I decided I'd throw in a cake and some lunch and call it Lizzie's birthday party.

FOOD
I ordered pizza for lunch, but had a cheese/crackers and veggie tray, cheetos, pretzels, and jello jigglers.

Side note about the jello jigglers - I got the idea here (pretty huh?) -- they didn't turn out as nice. It looked pretty cool when I sprinkled the big sugar crystals and the gold glitter on it... but it started to like melt my jello. Big boo! So just a warning if you try that -- doesn't work as well as the picture showed in the pin.

And you can't have a Noon (or New) Years Eve party without a toast... so sparkling white and red grape juice for after the countdown.

CAKE
I made a "clock" cake using an 8 (or maybe 9) inch cake pan, a dozen cupcakes around the outside for the hour numbers (with 12 more for backups), and I used gold icing spray and gold star edible glitter (picked up from Hobby Lobby). For the numbers, I printed out a font that I wanted onto computer paper, covered it with parchment (or wax) paper, and using Wilton Chocolate melts, I traced the numbers and stuck them in the fridge to cool.

They pealed very easy and I stuck them on top the morning of the party.

I'm quite pleased how well this turned out -- and it was easy!

DECORATIONS
This one was pretty easy -- I stuck to "low-key" and had some plastic table cloths, a box or 2 of the New Years Eve party hats, crowns, and noisemakers... that's it.

FUN
We had a table set up where all the kids could make and decorate their own "noise makers" using clear plastic cups, bells, beads, dried pasta (a leftover from a previous party), and stickers to decorate the outside.

Also, we were at a park, so that sort of took care of itself and this park has a walking path around it so some kids brought bikes and scooters and they had a great time.

But I'd have to say that the best part of the party was...

THE COUNTDOWN
... because, I mean that is what you do at New Years, right?

I picked up 5 large rolls of bubble wrap from walmart, laid them out in lines, and lined the kids up in between the rows. To be honest, it was a bit windy that day so they kept flying up.  All set with New Years party hats and noisemakers we started our countdown.

When we hit 1, the kids blew their noisemakers and jumped up and down on the bubble wrap and - Oh My Goodness - since we were underneath a park shelter, it actually sounded like fireworks. It was pretty awesome and the kids loved it!

and Lastly...
PARTY FAVORS
On top of the noise maker craft that they kids did earlier, they also got to take home a ring pop so they could "Ring in the New Year".

Birthday girl had a blast!

Linking up: Vintage Gwen , Shaken Together , remodelaholic, Lolly Jane , I heart naptime , Crafty Moms Share , Nifty Thrifty Things, DIY Showoff, A Bowl full of Lemons , Homework , Elizabeth and Co , Creating my Way to Success ,