Year 3, February 17th, 2018: Abishai's 3rd Birthday PARTY!

Abishai's birthday was a SMASHING success! Everything got done steadily and easily. We had plenty of time to spare before guests arrived. Everyone showed up and had a great time! The kids played and played and played! I ALMOST wished we always had indoor parties because I could concentrate on the party instead of going inside and outside, worrying about wet children running wild (pool parties) inside. I could decorate way ahead of time instead of right before. We didn't even have to get up extra early. Yes, we had a full house but everyone was spread out enough that it didn't feel any worse than a large small group or superbowl party or something. I was very pleased with that. I am exhausted, and have had not desire to be productive the rest of the day. That always makes me feel lazy because I am surrounded by projects that need to be done. Or do they? Tomorrow is super full again, so I took the day off and took a little nap and played on my phone. I do consider reading a chore these days, so although I love the concept, I just haven't been into it. Probably because most of my books are heavier/meaty or self help books like on oils or food. Anyway, I'm trying not to worry about it because I DID work extremely hard this week. I've got such a “Martha” of Mary and Martha in the Bible to do list junkie spirit. Lol.

Anyway, I'll try to recount the birthday party bit by bit.  This was Abishai's first birthday with friends!  We started the tradition when Benaiah was 3, to invite friends over.  It was a bit easier to find the friends because we were in MOPS and I could look on our information sheets that had names and birthdates of the kids and figure out who is around the kids' age.  But, I managed to come up with 6 families with 3 yr olds and 5 of them were able to make it!  Yeah!  Parents and siblings are welcome to hang out, too.  We had Ami Lynn and her two twin boys, Nate and Donovan (Abishai hung out with them last week); Katie Land with her youngest Rebekah, and her oldest, Sarah, who is Keturah's friend;  Abby Boston (who used to be on the same floor in the dorm at college) and her daughter Lauren; Ami Shannon (our special needs director at church) and her husband and 3 kids, Estella, and Crosby (they also homeschool), Amanda Smith and her husband, with Hunter, who we met through Leah and helping in the nursery, and we also had Grandma and Grandpa stop by, as well as our friend Sherry, too.  It was definitely a full house!  Everybody found the house ok and they were all able to tolerate Socks, so he got to be inside, too.  We made Benaiah keep his earbuds out of his ears, and he did interact some, but not a whole lot. Justin was gone for an overnight with the middle schoolers at church.

Like I said, preparations were done well in advance so we had plenty of time to fiddle with things like filter extra water.  Guests arrived, the boys and girls played a ton, I wandered around with my camera, and then it was time for cake!  We had cake about 11 am and presents soon after because a couple of families had to leave early.  Everybody did well and there were no fights or major spills.  Abishai seemed comfortable with lots of people in his space, but he did end up on sensory overload and quiet whiny at naptime.  I think I will save the rest of the details for the pictures because I'm not coming up with a play by play of today's events very well.

I nailed it!  For reals! I did get most of the inspiration off of Pinterest itself, but my friends say this is also Pinterest worthy!  For the record, I HATE spreading the "crumb" layer! And I don't like canned frosting either.  It was gluten free, but not dairy free, so when I ate too much of it, I didn't feel good.  But also, it was too thick to spread well.  I'll be making my own again next time.  I make it thinner so it goes on more like a glaze.  Plus it doesn't have all the junk in it.  But do you see the number 3 that is outlined by the pretzels?

Speaking of pretzels, when you put them on a cake, they will absorb all the moisture and become disgusting.  Whoops!  I had to even off the top of the cake before flipping it over, so that's where I got all the extra "dirt" for Abishai's " 'struction cake."  (Construction cake).  He wanted to play in it instead of eating it!  The cone candles are awesome!  And the #3 candle is yes, from Benaiah's 3rd birthday party nearly 14 years ago.  I have all the numbers and all the candles and toppers from every birthday party.  I think it turned out very well.  Two boxes of GF yellow cake mix from Aldi's with cocoa powder and stevia mixed in to make it chocolate.  The batter was very thick, so the cake was very moist but dense.  It tasted ok, but I'll definitely have a sugar headache from it.  It felt great to be able to be creative and make this again.  I don't have many years left of doing it!  I don't use fondant, ever, so this is as fancy as I get for the most part.  I have plenty of Wilton baking supplies like tips and bags and food colorings left over from Canada, so I"m not great at it, but I can do something for someone every year.

Cute signage that says "Birthday Zone" on the front door.

All ready! It was a "Construction Site" theme with excavators, dump trucks, and ulldozers.

Drinks were water and juice pouches.

Happy Birthday banner and big items to hand up, and little ones, too.  I got it all in a kit on Amazon.com.  We had chex mix and carrots, tomatoes, strawberries and cantaloupe for non cake goodies.  Speaking of goodies, I forgot to hand out goody bags again.  Whoops!  And did you spy the upside down Rubbermaid box?  It's my makeshift cake box!  Lol!  And it worked really well!  It was the perfect size for the cutting board I use to put the cake on.  We got the balloons last night, and I was surprised to find the latex ones lasted the whole day!  Usually they guarantee that latex balloons only last 12 hrs.  The mylar ones (foil) last for months sometimes if you are careful!  We filled them at Party City on Washington St. after getting groceries last night.

I set up a few different areas for the kids, but no one really seemed interested.  One was this ring toss game.  I also left out the chalkboard.

Basketball hoop with balls.

Helping Daddy with the fireplace!

Winter for the Canadian baby!  I did put a Canadian flag on the cake as well.  And as the last guest left, it started to snow!  It didn't stick, but how nice that it snow at Abishai's birthday party day!

Anxiously waiting for his friends.  He really does understand the concept of having friends come over.

Abishai, Nate (aka Peanut), Donovan in the back and Crosby up front.  Playing with cars as usual.

Yeah for having a friend over for Keturah!  One of her best friends, Sarah!

Peanut! I talked about them last week, but I'm so glad that they could come!  Nate (Peanut) and Donovan are twins.  They were born a few weeks after yesterday was and they were early.  He's so cute!

Having some snacks with the Lands and Shannons.

Girl party!

But Mom! I just want to go diggin'!

It feels good to be in the swing of things and doing what we always have done.  I handle the camera, Jared handles the candle and cutting the cake.

Big blow! He did it!

Dig, dig, dig!

Lots of friends around the table.

More digging!

Loads and loads of cake fun!

Abishai refused to read the cards.  Instead, he plowed through all the presents.  And boy did he get some awesome ones!  I was just excited that he is mature enough to understand that they were for him and could say thank you and everything!

A very full room of friends!  It was fun because a lot of kids and parents knew each other since they were all from church.

Lots of newer friends, too!  Can't wait to continue our friendships!

Monster trucks from Donovan and Nate!  His favorite toy for the next 24 hrs!  They also got him this cool motorcycle that I'm sure you will see in videos and pics in the next week or so.

Great handmade gift by Keturah's best friend's mom, Katie Land!  I car carrier and fabric/felt road pieces to put the cars on!  How cute!

One of the daddies really got into playing swords with the kiddos!  That was so Jared when we were younger.  I would find him chasing the kids during or after small group time.

Isn't that road cool?  Oh and she customized a box to put it in!

We found this really cool tie dye balloon in our stash and Benaiah blew it up.  Everybody participated in getting the house ready for the party.

The number 3 balloons!  That have last way longer than the typical 12 hr latex with helium balloons!

Some of the cards Abishai got.  Aw!

His mylar balloon that goes with theme.  It came with the kit I bought.  I typically buy the themed balloon ahead of time when I buy other things and then take it to a store to be filled.  I just don't want to get to the store and they not have what we want.  But Party City does have the best selection.  I bought the number 3 balloons there, and I do typically buy the latex balloons to add on to the other balloon when I get them filled, so the retailer feels like I'm purchasing more than just helium.  I bring in my own balloon weights though.  I have about 8 of them now, lol. 

Abishai's loot!  Speaking of loot, we forgot to hand out treat bags, again!  Ugh!  I need to make them up ahead of time and leave on the table with the food.  Grrrr.....anyway, Abishai got (from left to right), the car carrier roll up bag with cars and case and the fabric road.  He also got two monster trucks with interchangeable tops and a light up motorcycle that does a wheelie!  He got a full set of CAT construction vehicle.  And he got the cutest book with sounds called "Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site."  It's so perfect!

He also got some bath tub fun from Sherry (at my request), a sticker book where you add the facial features to the animals (it reminds me of snapchat filters), and some more color wonder pages!  Color wonder are special markers that only color on their special paper and never on clothes or surfaces.  We've had them since Benaiah was little.  This is one invention I don't mind taking advantage of!

 

Panorama of the party room aka the dining room!

Abishai was saying good bye to his last guest and needed to put on some shoes quickly because it was cold and SNOWING outside!  So he put on Benaiah's shoes!  So cute!  Jared was barefoot of course.

Yes, it snowed pretty good for an hr or so after the Canadian's birthday party.  Perfect!  It's going to be in the 50's this week, with a 70 degree high on Tuesday.  One last spit of snow for us!

Over stimulated birthday boy had a hard time falling asleep in his own bed for naptime, so he took a 3 hr nap with Daddy.  Daddy slept most of that time, too.  We milk all the cuddles we can out of this last child and he lets us.  Adorable!

Snow!!