Birthday Stuff!

Being horrible at keeping up with this has been hard for me.  So, I took a note from Google's commercials and instead sent E a birthday email.  Here's what I wrote:

Dear E,

How is it possible that you are almost three?  

You have been so good about learning to use the potty!  You stay dry almost all day, and USUALLY will go sit on the potty when we tell you it's time.  This weekend, you sat on a public toilet without your special seat for the first time (with lots of help from me!)  We just need to work on... well... number 2.  (Sorry to be gross and embarrassing).

Yesterday was your first swimming class in the pool without me.  I was so nervous that you would freak out, but no.  You went right in and seemed to have a great time.  I caught your eye in the door (I have to sit in the lobby) and you had a big smile on your face.  This isn't the best photo I'm sure, but it's what's handy.

Your language has EXPLODED in recent weeks.  You are so much easier to understand, but I love the little "E-isms" like how you say "What's that noisy" instead of noise, or "I got dressed beoutyou" instead of without you.

I've attached a video of you running around in the morning from April 7.  You've taken a liking to waking up early.  I usually wake you around 6am to get ready for school, but last week you started waking around 5:30.  It got pretty annoying when you were up at 5am on Sunday morning.  Luckily you slept in a little bit today so Daddy and I were able to get ready without too much trouble.

You make me so proud.  You are such a great helper, always wanting to help with cleaning or cooking, or just doing whatever I ask of you (as long as it's not putting away your toys; this one is a struggle, I think, because you don't know where things belong).  You have a great sense of humor and are a total show off/ham.  You love to give hugs and kisses and are very generous and usually are a great sharer.

I'm so happy to know you!

Love,

Mom

For his actual birthday, E posed for this picture:

We went to the Dish Cafe for breakfast:

And then we went to another friend's birthday party!

We had a really fun day!!

But things got REALLY special yesterday for E's THIRD birthday monster bash!

I'll add those to a slideshow soon!

Birthday Party Madness!

We held off on E's birthday party in order to wait for G & G's return from Florida.  I found a party website that used the idea of "One Year in a Flash," since baby's first year (and frankly, baby's whole life it seems!) go by in such a seemingly quick time.  I ran with the idea, and had a good amount of fun doing it.

The first site on which I saw the idea was here.  I also took the color palette from this site, for a different party altogether.  One of my favorite ideas came from here, how to build your own photobooth.

I started with the invitation,

The favors didn't quite tie into the theme, but I made sugar cookies in the shape of a cupcake....

I had plans to buy a personalized birthday shirt for E, but it just wasn't in the budget.  Instead, I found this onesie at Target.

We set up the photobooth using items I picked up on freecycle as props, using the free program in the link above.

We didn't get EVERYONE in front of the camera, but those who did seemed to have had a good time!

 

 As far as food, we chose to fire up the grill.  We made hamburgers and hotdogs, as well as grilled vegetable skewers.  My mom made a green salad and a broccoli salad, M's aunt brought cole slaw, and Mom Mom brought a crockpot of meatballs and sausage.  I really wanted to keep it simple, especially since it wasn't a huge gathering (we expected about 20, including us), so didn't serve appetizers.  For dessert, we served ice cream cake for Grampy's birthday, and Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes, which were an even bigger hit than the Cherry Coke cupcakes I made for A's third birthday party!

Since the day was so lovely, the kids really weren't interested in the craft I had for them to do.  I picked up these foam picture frames for them to decorate with foam stickers and letters, with the intent of using it for their photobooth printout.  So I sent them home with the kids in zip bags.



E and Grammi played a fun game of peekaboo...

Playing with the bean bag toss with Grammi, and E stood completely unsupported for the first time (and, yeah, I haven't been able to get him to do it since...)




The last "little touch" I did for the party was to make a photo banner of pictures of E.  I chose one from each month, matted it on colored cardstock, and hung them using clothespins on pretty ribbon.  Picture of that coming soon.  I also made photo confetti of E's monthly pictures, but couldn't think of a use since the entire party was outdoors.

Hopefully everyone had a great time.  We had such a gorgeous day and it was so nice to have all our family together to celebrate our special E Boy!!