The party: come on in ...

Here are a few little party details. It was nothing elaborate - our same family group / might-as-well-be-family group from last year, though that does turn out to be about 20 people.

Ellen's favorite color is purple these days, and I just randomly decided "golden birthday" would work as our (easy) theme.

Pop-up card idea, and #3 balloon idea, courtesy of Oh Happy Day. Fortuitously, my circus birthday banner from last year was on gold ribbon, so it worked perfectly!

And then I just grabbed some gold decorations from US Toy ... crowns? streamers? Sure! I was also wanting to get some little buckets for all of Ellen's colors and found these in the $1 aisle at Target. Worked great for party games, though actually mostly it was "chase around the house".

I love party balloons, but why is helium so expensive? Especially in the cold weather, those balloons last about 36 hours. Use your own breath, hang them upside down on a thread, and no one is the wiser (courtesy of A Girl and A Boy via Pinterest).

The gift opening was pretty much a hit, can you tell?

We had mac & cheese (Mark Bittman's recipe which seemed healthy-ish), salad, fruit and veggies and The Best Ever Chocolate Cake. Seriously, that is the name of the recipe (Erik's family favorite) and it lives up to the hype.