3, Really???

    My little guy turned three a few weeks ago.  Is that right?  It seems so hard to believe that he could already be three.  Time has flown by so fast.  Seems like just the other day he looked like this:

And now he has grown into this:

     For his party he wanted a Toy Story 3 party {who would have guessed?}.  Which I think played perfectly since he was turning three.  So I went to work making his invitation.  I got inspiration for the invitation when I came across a site with a Woody origami shirt.  I thought it was a neat idea and would make a nice invitation.  I took the Father's Day shirt template that I used last year and found some coordinating paper and gold stars to complete the invitation.  I did have to create my own cowprint paper for the vest though.

     Since Noah was asking all winter to go swimming, we decided that a pool party would be a perfect venue for his party.  It ended up being a small party and we pretty much had the pool to ourselves.   So overall it was a pretty low key party, but the kids had a lot of fun and didn't want to leave the pool. 

The green alien cookies for the daycare and his preschool.

Blowing out the candles with the daycare.

Opening presents on his birthday.

Mikayla's birthday present for Noah.

Finally, a real Bullseye.

Mack and Lightning McQueen.

The birthday banner.

Woody cowboy shirt and vest cupcakes.

Making sure he gets all the candles.

Opening presents.  This card from my parents plays music which he loves.

Getting ready to hand out goodie bags.  He helped me put them together and kept
asking if it was time so he could have one.

Watching the torpedo in the pool.

These two were deciding if they wanted to dare go under the fountain. {Ava finally did}

Mikayla really wanted me to take a picture of her under the water.

A Dino-Mite Party

     My little boy turned two!  He has gone from THIS

to this at ONE

and now he's TWO!

     Okay, okay enough with the reminiscing.  On to the fun stuff that was the celebration of Noah turning two.  For his second birthday we embarked on the idea of a dinosaur theme.  I thought it was a really cute idea and he really seemed to be getting interested in them since PBS' Dinosaur Train came out.  We sent out the invitations and got a big response!  We knew that it was going to be a blast.  Originally we were going to have the party in our backyard, but with the fear of rain I thought it might be better to find a park with a picnic shelter.  Find one I did!  I found this little treasure trove of a park in the town next to us.  It has a little playground that was perfect for the toddlers and a larger playground for the bigger kids.  In addition we packed up our sand/water table and took it to the park.  I thought it would be fun for the kids to dig for little dinosaurs that I picked up in the party favor aisle at the party store.  This was by far the favorite activity of all the kids.  We also sent each child home with goodie pails.  It was a beach pail filled with one plastic egg which contained a dinosaur that grows in water, some fruit snacks, and playdoh.
As for the food we made dinosaur sandwiches using a sandwich cutter that I found at the grocery store which were primarily for the kids.  We also had barbeque beef, chips, and veggies.  I made both cupcakes and a cake for the party and Mike helped me to decorate them.  We have done this for the past couple of birthday parties for our kids and it is a lot of work, but I really enjoy the final product.  I really love the taste of homemade cake.
     Noah also had a blast opening his presents.  He wanted to play with each one and had to be prodded along to open the rest of the presents.  Overall it was a huge success and everyone had a blast.
Below are some of the pictures from the event including his invitation and thank you cards. 

The invitation

Digging for Dinosaurs

Fun at the Playground

The Birthday Boy and his Cake

Present Time!

Thank You!