kaleidoscoping chaos...: It's a Transportation Celebration!!!

Yes it was!

We had fun! We ordered way too much pizza. It was really hot out. After it was over, Jonah gave me two thumbs up and said, "it was good mommy!" Then Vera wanted to dance to some music. Mama put on "Celebration!" by Lionel Ritchie - we had a dance party while Nana was obsessively cleaning up around us (THANK YOU NANA!!!) - and when the chorus came on Jonah starting singing,"Transportation Celebration" - go Jonah go!

We are exhausted over here. I have a zillion deep and profound thoughts about everything: the latest article making the rounds (can women have it all?), birthday presents & materialism, your first kid turning 3, how different it is to have a 3 year old birthday party that really is a party for 3 year olds, grandparents & grand kids, how important your friends are, how great my mom is, the difference a year in my life is... and that is just the short list...

But alas, I am way too tired to even figure out how to write about any of that... just the highlights of our party day tonight. And some pictures to share the day with you!

(1) I had been planning this party forever in my head. In the end, it worked out pretty well - not everything - but most of it. I had fun and Jonah & Vera certainly looked like they had fun. Whoop whoop!

(2) The place looked exactly how I wanted it to look. That always makes me happy!

(3) The 5 station play areas. I came up with an idea that we would have 5 stations at the party: Train Area, Car Area, Boat Area, Plane Area, Space shuttle Area. At each stations, there was a "task" and a toy. You were supposed to do the task and keep the toy (put it into one of the bags that I had stamped last night at 1am and take them home with you.) Well, the idea basically worked, except no one really used the bags (until I was forcing them onto people at the end...) and many forgot to take the toys home. On the bright side, the kids seemed to love the little tasks! Sailing boats in water - BIG HIT! Riding trains around the train table - who doesn't love that one? Flying Planes through balloon clouds and spaceships over lantern planet earth - Absolutely! No one seemed to drive their car through the tunnel... but there was plenty of driving all kinds of cars and trucks all over the place. I call it a BIG SUCCESS overall!
(4) Did I mention we ordered way too much pizza and beer!!!!

(5) Even though there was a little glitch at the Giant in connection with the cake (they did it wrong...), it worked out fine. JONAH LOVED IT!!!!

(6) Our party favor was this little book that Jonah & I made together. We read it today to Mama, Nana, and Vera. It was really fun to make it and share it with our friends.

(7) Decorating the house with the kids! We did the stencils all month and then I put them everywhere. Today, the kids decorated the hallways with transportation wall decals. They also did stamping outside on big paper that I hung up to look like areas for transportation to take place. (road, tracks, sky, pond).

(8) The post party family dance party!

(9) The post-post party family dance party pizza eating by Jonah at 8pm followed by ice cream?!?!?!

(10) Seeing my awesome little boy asleep after his big party... that is basically perfection!