October is a big month in our house with both of my girls celebrating a birthday! Ruby turns 5 this week, and Coco turns 2 next week! Last year, I threw two different parties on the same weekend (crazy, I know), so this year we decided to have a joint birthday party and combine efforts into one bash for my little ladies. 

Here are some things that will go into decorating and planning a lovely little garden party…

01. Decor - Our party will be outdoors in a public garden area. Since decorations need to be set up pretty quickly, I always stick to things we can hang without having to nail or tape anything to public property like these clusters of honeycombs from Poppies for Grace and these giant paper flowers which we made (and will share the DIY soon!).

02. Outfits - Since we have a floral theme, it was super easy to find outfits from my kids' existing wardrobe and not have to buy anything new. Ruby is wearing a vintage dress we found earlier this year while we were shopping at Shareen Vintage with her Zuzii sandals. Coco is wearing this outfit that she still fits in from Crew & Lu and shoes by Zuzii.

03. Table - You guys know I love a good paper plate! We're mixing and matching a bunch of fun pieces from the Oh Happy Day shop including these floral and dotty plates. And the same gold glitter numbers we use every year by Little Cat Design Co. along with these awesome colorful candles.

04. Activity Stations - The park doesn't have a playground, so we'll have a few activities for the kids including a cookie decorating table and a floral necklace making table.

05. Book Drive – In lieu of gifts, we're asking all our friends to bring a book (gently used or new) for us to collect and donate to Baby2Baby for children in need. We did the same thing for Coco's 1st birthday, and we collected over 40 books last year! It's a great option for when you don't want or need more toys, and we always take the kids to bring the books and see where they're going to.

Stay tuned next week for some photos from this weekend's party!

{Photos by Casey Brodley. Party styling by Joy Cho, flat styling by Julia Wester.}