It’s almost time for a birthday party around here!

After what happened to our little Chloe at birth, it’s hard not to get super excited about her birthday. So we do. Get really excited, I mean. 🙂

Christmas is a little different for our family, it’s more about serving others than it is about receiving gifts, so we kinda treat birthdays as a very special occasion.

And I like parties.

After Chloe’s Great Nanny from Florida came up in August and showed her the one movie she watched with Chris every time he visited her, she was hooked. In fact it was the very exact same 25 year old VHS tape that only made it through one viewing, with lots of ‘tracking’ needed (remember those static lines that used to come across the screen?!).  And she was still in love.

Maybe it was the first strains of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, or the Lollipop Guild, or the Princess Witch. Whatever it was, the Wizard of Oz is the theme of the party for this little 5 year old, and she’s SO excited to be Dorothy!

I wanna make this the most fun Wizard of Oz birthday ever (and the cheapest! :)) – so here’s a little bit of my prep work.

We’re making a giant munchkin land in the backyard…we already have a nice playset (thanks to Craigslist) and an adorable 2 story play house (thanks to my mom’s amazing $40 find!)…so the bare necessities are definitely there. I just needed some decorations.

I decided to make some giant lollipops and flowers.

First you need some styrofoam circles, some glue, glitter, and dowel rods. I got everything I needed at my local craft store.

I put some glue on the circle in swirly shapes. You could use a template, or you could eyeball it like I did.

Now for the fun part - GLITTER!!! 🙂 (Yes I did this while the girls were in bed. My girls don't have a good reputation with glitter.)

Add a dowel rod into the styrofoam - these were $.59 each at my craft store - they're 1/2" thick and 36" long.

Add some cellophane and some curly ribbon and you'll have giant lollipops! 🙂

Now for the flowers…….

You'll need some curling ribbon, tissue paper, and crepe paper.

Fold 4 pieces of tissue paper accordion style - with your "center" color on top. Cut the ends of your tissue paper in a rounded shape like a half circle. Tie it in the middle with some curling ribbon, then carefully pull apart the pieces of paper. It'll puff up just like this one!

Add some crepe paper "leaves" and tape on those dowel rods, and you'll have giant flowers!