I gotta get this going.
Henry's birthday falls right after Christmas. Last year we celebrated with a baby little party where he got to eat cake and that was pretty much it. This year I wanted to do something more fun and momentous and also didn't want to worry about it right after Christmas so I changed Henry's birthday to February 2nd. And technically we still sang him Happy Birthday and he got a present or two on his
real birthday, so he really had a couple different birthdays. I think it all turned out great for him. I don't know what we're going to do next year, but I think he'll be old enough to tell us what he wants.
Henry woke up to balloons hanging and laying all over the ground, and his door was covered in streamers. He took them down gradually over the course of the morning. We started the day with a present and played for a little bit. Josh was sweet and played with Henry and did all his favorite things while I put together party stuff. They went to the park and kicked a ball, played in the sand pit, built a fort at home, watched Wild Kratts, took a nap, and played in the bath. We also spent all day talking about his birthday party when he would have friends and Grandma and Grandpa come over and play. I decorated H's cake when he was at the park and found him a bit later like this:
Soaking it all in.
So anyway, back to the birthday party. For the couple weeks before his birthday I asked him what he wanted at his birthday: trains, cars, trucks, or dinosaurs. He loves every item on that list, but without fail every time I asked he wanted trucks. He also had a love affair with Bob the Builder (hence the halloween costumes I shall post right now) so we decided to have a construction truck themed party. Oh, and the real reason I was most excited about this theme was so I could build a cake that was supposed to look "rough". Three cheers for avoiding fondant and weird shaped cake pans and a dozen different colors of frosting.
Halloween costumes.
Party decor! It took a couple days of hardcore research aka Pinterest to decide what I wanted to do, and I put most of it together the two days before his "birthday". I went to a couple different party stores looking for construction cones/party decor and was disappointed that what I found was either too expensive or didn't exist. Ultimately, the dollar store was my perfect party store. I found the cheapest balloons and toothpicks there, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of construction themed things they had in the party aisle! I found a bunch of small yellow cones and all the tiny little cones and signs are from the dollar store.
Everything I served food wise was a Henry favorite. He can eat an entire bag of Target popcorn by himself, he looooves Gingerbread men (thanks to Grandma Williams), can't get enough of strawberries and blueberries, orange cheese, and chiiiiiiicken (what he calls ham). And he'll eat anything on a tooth pick. I knew I picked right because as soon as the toothpick food was on the table, he got through about 1/3 of each plate before I cut him off.
My new Washington bestie, Michelle, has two kids that are about 6 months older and younger than Henry, and they were our two other child attendants in an otherwise adult filled party. The only activity I planned was a little construction "dig". Basically a storage box filled with pinto beans and I hid a ball for each kid and a few other little cars/trucks, and little packages of gummy worms. It went surprisingly well for three kids under 3 years old. And now Henry always asks to play the fuuuuUUUuuun bean game.
Fun presents! You can see Henry running away from the cutest little sweater that Mallory and Joshua picked out for him. He also got a train set, lawn mower, and some puzzles! Henry only had one major melt down with kids playing with his new toys. A serious success.
Last we ate cake and enjoyed time together. I think next year we'll try cake first presents second because the kids were zero percent interested in stopping to eat some cake. Henry stayed still for 15 seconds to blow out candles and pose for 1 picture then ran off to play with his toys some more. He had such a fun day.
We are so happy to be parents to this little ball of energy. He is non-stop energy from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes down. He such a good kid (or fears and respects me so much) as he actually will go down for bed and naps and has yet to climb out of his bed to avoid sleeping despite the fact I've witnessed him climb in and out of his crib. He loves singing and laughing and being really really silly. He always wants to facetime some member of our family, and will randomly remember different family members, like his uncle Brad who he kept saying will come to his party and it will be "fUUUUuuuuUUuuuUUUUN". Brad didn't make it, but Henry did say he had "fUUuuUUN" yesterday so it was ok. Henry loves to build things, and the floor is no longer a safe place for me because Henry now loves to wrestle and jump.
Well, naptime is over and Henry is currently calling, "Awake, Mommy!"
