Ooookay! We're back, with more birthday fun. I will be completely honest in that we pulled our house and party stuff together in very short order today. However, it was an awesome party and I "think" everyone had a great time, particularly our somewhat tired birthday boy.
The theme was red wagons and sock monkeys. (Note, yes, there was a handle planned for this wagon. Blame Uncle Able for its absence). Anyway, on the table we had the cake and some classic sweets and toys. Those circus peanuts are tied to some of my only memories of my Grandpa Blakley so they were a must. It turned out lots of people had memories about circus peanuts.
Small fun collection of some of his birthday goodies. He now has his own sock monkey (pictured here) and both small and large wagons. In that scrapbook + on the mantle are layouts from every month of the year and many from certain months. I spent a crazy amount of time making layouts for all 11 months leading up to this one. No one opened this book, and maybe someone looked at the mantle, but it mattered to me and it is in there. (Yes, Chrissie, I know you would have looked if you were here :))
Our recent tradition is to have layouts from the last year on the mantle. Not that many fit, but it is a great sampling of the stories from the year and fun to see how much he grew.
Audra, there were very few things hanging from the ceilings. My apologies. There were balloons? I also, for the first time in all my 34 years, used an entire roll of red curling ribbon all on one day. It was amazing.
Our party started off very quietly with Grammie and Granddaddy and a few neighborhood days. The rest of the day was, well, substantially noisier and more boisterous.
Mom brought some authentic vintage decore for the party too.
All the food was "snack" themed as E very much likes fruit and snack foods. It was a hit. I wish I'd ordered more nuggets as 120 was very much not enough. We did order 2XL and 2L pizzas around 6... (the party started at 2). We party hard here and extra time with our friends is wonderful. Thanks to everyone who hung out with us.
E seemed to like his cake and has been playing with the pinwheels off and on for weeks. Definitely one of his favorites.
E loves his wagon. He went on lots of rides pulled by many people. Grammie got him a shirt with a wagon on it that says "This is how I roll," which I thought was awesome.
This was the best picture during the "Happy Birthday" singing. Yes, he seemed fairly perplexed by it.
Then the cake smashing began. (Yes, we did take off his shirt, but not his shorts....) He, obviously, loved it.
And, wait for it, I made red velvet cake. Who does that with 10+ kids in the house and one baby smashing it everywhere. It is amazing to think I have three kids and still make these strange, naive choices sometimes.
Then, we opened presents and he had A LOT of help. I'm fairly sure he had no clue what was happening and it was all very fast. He did seem to play with this very cool wodden puzzle a lot. (No clue who gave it to him...sigh).
Stephen was definitely the ladies man of the day. These three young ladies had a fabulous time with him. I think they briefly abused and kept him hostage, but he and they seemed to have a great time.
In the back yard we had this mini-carnival set up. We had ten stations around the yard (initially, the mixed up pretty soon). Most of the stations were things we normally have in our yard, just more spaced out than on the porch. A few others we bought for the occasion-- ring toss, burlap sacks for sack races, wagon rides, badminton, and Grandma bought kiddie bean bag toss to match the grown up version Uncle Able brought by. There were also lots of balls, parachute, trucks, trikes, etc...
The signs were fun. It was "supposed" to be red poster paint, but was mostly a neon pink color. We went with it and let M design with do-a-dots as she liked. (Yes, that bokeh is natural, not a filter!)
It was great fun and everyone helped clean up and, all but one small baby, went home happy.
Oh, there were also goodie bags with Cracker Jacks, Jax, Sock Money Stickers, a picture of E, a ring, and, in most bags, a red jingle bell as E rather likes them. If you'd like a goodie bag let me know as we have "several" left.
Happy Birthday to E! I hope you had a wonderful time.
2 comments:
It was a terrific party, very relaxed and fun for everyone. I had a grand time visiting, snuggling with E, playing badminton with Addie and Phoebe and bean bags with Molly. Good times and good memories.
Happy Birthday, E! Glad it was a lovely party.
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