Three Years of Birthday Bashes

Hey Lovelies!

Man, I am totally swamped these days! Grad school is brutal, to say the least. Between papers and midterms and presentations, sometimes I feel like I hardly have time to breath, let alone sleep. But... all is well. I'm happy and Aiden is delightful and delicious, so hey...

In addition to fabulous Halloween festivities this past weekend, we celebrated Aiden's 3rd birthday. Yippee! While I was planning and throwing his 3rd birthday party, I took a trip down memory lane and looked back on previous years and previous birthday parties.

Since he loved it so much (and I do too!), Aiden's 1st birthday was all about Sesame Street. I was a super excited mommy and I went ALL OUT. First it was the Sesame Street decor; then the clown who did face painting, tattoos, parchute time, and limbo dances with the kids; next there was an Elmo character who took pictures with each child; and last there was the extra good stuff -- the piñata filled with candy, the yummy cake, and the goody bags... Yea, I went ALL OUT.

While I don't regret throwing him such an awesome party, in retrospect, I realized that it was a bit, eh excessive. Like, why does a 12-month-old need such a big party?

The Sesame Street Gang!

Elmo, which Aiden was totally afraid of.

He had as good of a time as any 1-year-old could have, but after hours and hours of hosting a party at the community center we rented out, I was beat! And after that 1st party, I learned my lesson: it was too long, too pricey, and there were too many kids. Word.

So for his 2nd birthday party, I decided to tone it down a notch. Since he loves Gymboree Play & Learn so much, I decided to have a 3-hour birthday party at our local Gymboree. It was a Barney and Friends themed party (another favorite of Aiden and me) and it was 3 hours of non-stop fun with about 15 of Aiden's playmates. They really enjoyed the free play activities, structured activities, singing, dancing, parachute time, and bubbles. And of course, all the kids loved when Gymbo came out to greet them! I decorated a bit, but toned it down a lot, and the kids still enjoyed a few of the extra good stuff like goody bags and cake. Yum!

This year, I decided to have Aiden's party on Halloween at The Fun Factory, a local shop in Brooklyn, NY that specializes in birthday parties and Mommy and Me classes. Having the party on Halloween actually worked in my favor because the theme for his party was Go, Diego Go, as was his Halloween costume. Along with his friends, Aiden enjoyed 3 hours of face painting, singing, dancing, free play, painting their own artwork to create a masterpiece, and cupcakes, and goody bags... all in their cute little Halloween costumes. It was a blast! I hardly had to do any work and totally felt like a guest at my own event... now THAT'S my kind of party!

Aiden's out; Diego's in... and dancing!

As for me, this Halloween weekend, I was mommy by day...

And a Shipmate Cutie aka Sailor Girl by night.

OOWWSSHHH!!!

Smooches,

SweetAl