Party Day

The best thing about a 3rd birthday is that she knew. It was the first birthday that she looked forward to, that made her so giddy with excitement that she was literally bursting to the point of overflowing into shaking hands and arms while falling back onto a pillow. That alone makes it all worthwhile! The fact that she got to celebrate for two days – both her actual birthday and the day of her party – was just the icing on the cake.

For the first time in history, I managed to be 97% ready the night before, leaving only the things that would need to be done the day of the party – hanging things outside, final food prep, etc. Can I please just say how great that felt? I closed the fridge on a gigantic cake on Friday night knowing that the cake and food and drinks were chilling.

If we’re going to call a “theme,” the very loose theme of the party was Rainbows. Centered around our absolute, most favorite cake EVER. I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but with a little bit lot of help and suggestions from an amazingly talented friend it actually worked. Even better than I could have hoped!

We kind of wavered on what kind of party to have. On one hand, she was so excited for her party and we wanted to invite friends. But on the other hand, she doesn’t have a ton of little friends that she’s attached to yet and I knew that she would be happy with absolutely any sort of party. And when they’re so little still, those parties are some serious awkwardness. There’s always the group of few moms who know one another, then the other random people who don’t know anyone and wind up just chasing their little ones around the whole time and not even being able to relax and enjoy themselves. Plus, I didn’t want to invite just one or two kids and have the moms just feel all awkward amongst our families. So, we compromised and invited one family friend, the sweet little girl we used to babysit and at the last minute the 5-year-old whose grandparents live next door came over. It was a great mix of family and friends and just enough for her to play but not be entirely overwhelmed. So, it wasn’t exactly a party for just her and her friends and we were fine with that. She has the rest of her years for parties just for kids and this year, she was just so very happy to be surrounded by all of the people she loves best in the world – Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and our favorite neighbor Sally and our friends who adore her.

And then we all took a nap…The End.