yesterday, as i watched my son, splashing and playing with his friends at the pool, it was hard to believe he was three years old that day. even in the space on one night, from his last day as a two year old, to his first day as a three year old, he seemed to have matured even more. he woke up and assembled a complex train track, then quickly put together a huge floor sized train puzzle that heretofore he needed help with or grew frustrated trying to complete himself, and he corrected his grandpa when he was asked if he was two, saying, "no! i'm THREE!" i love that he is growing into such a big boy, but i'm so sad to see the darling baby boy disappearing. i keep cuddling him as much as i can, feeling these days slipping so quickly away.
Ozzy, two days before his 3rd birthday! we just got back from the grocery store, hence the "thank you" stickers!
originally, i had planned to celebrate ozzy's 3rd birthday with a small party at home, inviting no more than 5-6 friends, but DH thought it would be less stressful for me to have it elsewhere (which was absolutely true, but ozzy's so little, i wasnt sure about a big party at another venue. esp in the summer when everyone had vacation plans and camps and may not be able to come). not wanting to push the point, i agreed to find another location.
so i asked ozzy where he wanted to have his birthday party, offering up options like chuck e cheese and the play gym, he told me he wanted to have his birthday at the swimming "cool." i reserved the day at the local waterpark where we have season passes before we left for our indianapolis trip, sent out the evites while at my sister's house in Indy, and then upon returning, had little over a week to get the party stuff together, which if you know me, is far too little time, thus made me very anxious. but we made do and i resigned myself to letting a lot go, as there was no time to pull it all together. (srsly, i didnt want to be that mom that ends up giving the second child less than the first!!! :( but that's how it keeps on ending up! poor ozzy!)
when i asked ozzy about the party theme and what he wanted he immediately pipes, "Thomas!"(at this point, he's said it so much i think it's like a tic and he just yells it out almost reflexively). and then he adds, "aaaand Chuggington. aaaand Cars." mimi suggested we make cupcakes with little paper toppers with all his favorite characters from all three. wanting to keep it simple b/c of our short time frame, i agreed it was a good idea.
and then i got an email from Williams-Sonoma featuring their new Cars 2 cakelet pans, which ozzy saw when i was checking my email and he got all excited and said he wanted that (he didnt even know they were cakes at first, just saw they were cars). and after i told him they were cakes...well, that just closed the deal for him. i was already feeling kind of bummed about not having had enough time to make and send out cute invitations and make decorations for the party area, i struggled with wanting to keep it simple with cupcakes but at the same time wanting to give him something more special since everything else was so blah. in the end, you know what won out.
DH was taking the kids and his mom to the mall to watch Cars 2 for the second time that weekend, so i asked him to bring home the cakelet pan. he comes home with that, and a track pad from the apple store for my imac that i've been wanting, and a receipt for that beautiful dining table i've been eyeing at pottery barn for the past couple of months for MY birthday present (i should send him to the mall more often in july ;)! ) and he rented a truck and brought it home for me the next day so i wouldnt have to wait for the delivery. (it's more rustic than i usually go for, but i love the size and the legs on this piece. you can have a rectangular table but no legs getting in they way! cant wait to get the bench to go with it! it's gorgeous!!!)
(sorry, i get sidetracked easily. had to brag about my DH a little though, cuz he's my sweetheart and i love him! he does make me crazy sometimes, but then there's times like this, when he knows just the thing to make my day!)
since Ozzy liked the Cars cakelets, i went with more Cars themed decorations for the party (he was okay without Thomas and Chuggington. whew!) i bought some Cars themed table covers and cut outs and some balloons as well as a game (JIC there was any interest). i would have really loved to do a really cute themed tablescape with lots of cold fresh fruit, veggies, and other goodies. i wanted to hang up some colorful pendant flags from all the sun umbrellas, and hang up a handmade birthday banner, racing style, of course, and some big checkered race flags. and how fun would it have been to have some face painting as a nod to Ramone's paint shop? stacks of inflatable black pool tube "tires" for Luigi's leaning tire sculpture? traffic cones for decorations? label the drinks like they came from Flo's V8 Cafe? label some sunscreen as "Rusteeze Medicated Bumper Ointment"? so many cute ideas, but no time to execute! i had to just keep telling myself: keep it simple, stupid! you dont have time. but, i did find some Cars pool toys that ended up being a hit with the kids, so i bought those.
with the party fast approaching, mimi and i got to work on shopping for party supplies and goodies, decorating and filling the goody bags, making the cupcake toppers and sleeves. i found some great toys for the goody bags. i get mildly irritated by all the cheap trinkets that fill up most party goody bags, that come home with the kids, b/c they dont get played with for more than 2 seconds (if at all). once all the candy is eaten, the kids discard the other knickknacks all over the house, like so much flotsom, so i end up throwing all that plastic away. with that in mind, i wanted to give the kids something they would really enjoy and have fun with. i saw a kid at a local spray park playing with a bubble gun several weeks ago, and there were swarms of kids around him wanting to play with it. so i set out to find some to give as favors. i probably could have found a better deal on them online, but there wasnt much time, so i bought them where i could find them. Also bought some Cars 2 themed playing cards, and added in some Cars 2 fruit snacks. if siblings came, i added a toy water rocket that seemed like a cute idea to take to the beach or pool or spray park...or just play in the yard.
mimi begged to be able to help (YES! i love her!!!) and i was only too willing to enlist some free child labor! (isnt that why people have kids? lol.) i printed out images for the goody bags (a big medallion with Lightning McQueen and some text in his race car colors that said, "Thanks for coming to my party. I hope you had a great time!"). i found some curly ribbon at the party store that were the right colors and mimi stuck everything on the bags for me. then she mounted all the images of various race cars onto large plastic toothpicks to be used as cupcake toppers. while she did that i created a template to make my own cupcake 'sleeves' to pop the cupcakes into. you know when you bake cupcakes in predecorated liners, the cute images get all washed out from the oils in the cake. so then you have to put them in another liner to get the full effect of the design/color. so instead, i baked them in basic liners, and then popped them into some colorful sleeves that i made. i printed out a bunch of little Cars logos which mimi glued to the front of each sleeve.
then i got to work on the cakelets in the evening, baking, cooling, icing, and covering w/homemade marshmallow fondant. the next day, was mostly spent working on the cakelets, (here's how they turned out: for those of who havent seen Cars 2, the three new cars on the right are Shu Todoroki (white one), Finn McMissile, and Francesco Bernouli)
the next morning, rob took mimi to camp while i packed up all the pool gear, beverages in the cooler, and party supplies, loaded the car and headed out to the waterpark at 10:30 a.m. (my parents arrived that morning as well. they stayed at the house to make the traditional birthday seaweed soup for ozzy and me. they would meet us later at the pool).
the weather was GORGEOUS. it was partly sunny and upper 70s...reaching the low 80s by midday/early afternoon. when we arrived at the waterpark, i met DH's mom there (she was going to help by watching ozzy, so i could greet guests as they arrived), and we got to the ticket counter just after no less than 3 bus loads of summer camp kids unloaded! oy! my heart started to beat a little faster as my vision of a fairly empty pool on a friday was completely dashed.
luckily, all of ozzy's friends were 2 and 3 year olds, so we mostly stuck to the kiddie pool which is away from the main pool where the camp kids were, where, i kid you not, they packed into the shallow end of the pool like a bucket teaming with fish, the water seething from so many bodies and the kids basically just bobbing up and down b/c there was hardly any room to move. really?!? you'd think they'd have a system to book camps to prevent overcrowding? yuck. when it's that crowded it feels less like a pool and more like an intimate bath with strangers. ick. thankfully, by lunch time, the camp kids packed up and left and we pretty much had the run of the place afterwards.
i had the party area reserved for 5:00p.m. (i figured that was a more 'work' friendly time for people who had to put in some hours at work, since the party was on a friday), but we were going to spend the whole day there and invited friends to join us whenever they could. people trickled in and out throughout the day. i found it difficult to relax b/c i felt i needed to keep an eye out for the guests as they arrived (that's part of my OCD), although it was fine and there was no trouble getting into the park, and guests were able to spot me in the kiddie pool area before too long. but still, i fretted over it.
ozzy loved having his friends come. each friend he greeted with great enthusiasm. it was so darling, i could cry. and since they were all coming at different times through out the day, he was never overwhelmed, having only about 3 kids to play with at a time, with the greatest concentration happening just before the party time (but even then it was only 9 friends + mimi -- 4 friends came early, had lunch w/us and left early). it was nice for me too, to be able to chat w/mom/dads comfortably, instead of the usual running-around-no-time-for-talking at your typical 1.5 hr bday party situation.
we got lunch w/the first wave of party guests at the waterpark's Beach Break concessions and then saw them off with hugs and goody bags. then at 5:00 the post lunch group gathered in the party area for pizzas, chips, lemonade/punch, cake, and popsicles. it was literally, a Day O' Fun!
the Cars cakelets were a hit, although some children wanted the cakelets but couldnt bring themselves to actually eat them, wanting to keep them intact! :) but my kids had no qualms about biting in! LOL!
the grandparents were so worried that 8 hours at the pool was too long for a 3 year old, but ozzy did great. he loved every minute of it and was sad when it was time to go at 7pm. i had even packed his sippy cup of milk and stroller for his midday nap, but he did little more than lay down for a few minutes to warm up, drank some milk, then asked to go back into the pool. his joy at being there that day for his special day was so obvious, it made me so happy for him. i was worried that having a big pool area would cause everyone to spread out and it wouldnt feel like a special celebration, but most of our guests stayed in the kiddie pool and played with ozzy, which we had mostly to ourselves, so it couldnt have been better!
before leaving the park at 7:00, rob took ozzy to the showers to wash and put on his p.j.s. we got him in the car, and didnt even get to the main road home before he was asleep. i knew he'd be down for the rest of the night. he could open his presents tomorrow. i loved seeing his peaceful little face in my rearview mirror as i drove home. nothing like the look of a child worn out from a day filled with fun!
the next day, i asked ozzy what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "blowing out my candles!" lol. well, shoot...if THAT's all it took...
he later thanked daddy and me for a wonderful birthday party. (anything for our little babies!!!)
it was SO great to have so many friends make the effort to come, even taking time off from work to make it out there! it REALLY made our day!!!! if wealth were measured in friendships, we'd be stinkin' rich!!! love you, guys!!!
i didnt get to take many pictures throughout the day (i hope to get some from friends who did, tho! you know who you are! ;)
my two favorite boys.
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