Alex is 3! Part Dos

So we threw our little Alex a party last weekend! We sort of had to. It has turned out to be an insane month for birthdays (oh and we did the math - guess which June holiday we have to thank? FATHER'S DAY! Helloooo second children born in March! LOL we were dying laughing when we realized).  Anyway, we literally got 8 other invitations this month and Alex started to really grasp this whole birthday concept. Let's just do something small at the house, we said. It will be easy, we said.

BAHAHAHA.

Actually it really wasn't that bad besides a guest list that turned out to be double what we planned on. We have a lot of neighbors and friends I guess! So we had 19 kids and 20 adults for a quick and dirty 90 minutes. I hired a musician to come play for 30 of those, thinking he would have all the children hypnotized in the front room while the parents drank in peace in the kitchen. Well he was a total bust but it wasn't really his fault. All the kids wanted to do was run around like headless chickens and hit the toy box. Which was honestly fine. I think us grownups were still able to enjoy ourselves despite the complete chaos that was happening at 3 feet.

The party was otherwise simple. I sent an Evite, which goes against every fiber of my being as I love paper products and stationary, but as I said, "simple". Decorations were balloons and streamers of all colors that did not match. There was no theme, no goodie bags, and no gifts. Probably the most high maintenance thing I did was rent kids tables and chairs. One trip to Party City, one trip to BJ's, done and done. Oh and I did order a vegan cake from Quebrada. Not that this was about Ashton, but the look on his face at parties when he can't have the cake (due to the egg) is heartmeltingly sad. All he ever wants is to have a piece just like everyone else. He cries about it sometimes. So he and one other boy with a dairy allergy benefited from this decision and no one could even tell the difference ;)

I did attempt one Pinterest-y decoration that was strips of plastic tablecloths with balloons in the middle.

The magical music room that never was.

Alex helped me with the rest of the set up. He walked around all morning wearing his crown and saying "I'm the VERY happy birthday boy, yep, I am!"

We did a big cheese board and chips and guacamole (<-- best recipe you'll find) for snacks, and served the kids pizza and fruit for dinner. This is an actual representation of said dinner:

The blur is real.

General party pics:

(Watch us sing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G7awy44onA) 

 (The little girl next to Alex is Addie our neighbor, we went to her 2nd birthday party the next day!)

AND THEN it was time for cake. You don't know what trial by fire means until you've had to cut, plate and pass out cake at a kid's birthday party. Dozens of sets of little eyes are fixated on you and your every move. In particular, I'm trying not to relive the moment where they all realized there were gummy bears on the cake and I WANT A GUMMY BEAR WITH MY PIECE! A RED ONE! CAN I HAVE TWO GUMMY BEARS ACTUALLY?? And suddenly my ears were filled with shouts and demands and my own husband telling me to "go faster".

It's a special kind of pressure and it's intense. They could probably make a TV show out of it. In a strange twist, Ashton was the only one who waited patiently.

6 pm and that's a wrap everybody. We did have some neighbors stay until more like 6:30/6:45 pm just chatting which was great. After they left, clean up was really a breeze and Alex opened a few cards and that was it! It was a [crazy wild and hectic] success that took a long time to come down from haha.

Alex, you were the perfect little master of ceremonies! You knew it was your party, you blew out your candles and shared all your toys and only cried once. Happy birthday, we love you!!