Garrett’s Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Garrett’s first birthday!!!  His actual birthday isn’t until Tuesday, but since Halloween was next weekend we decided to have his birthday party this weekend instead.  We had a great turnout of friends and family!  I am reminded, however, of the reason I despise having birthday parties at my house.  The setup and cleanup is brutal and I feel like I don’t get to talk to people as much since I’m playing host.  First birthday parties are the only ones I have at my house.  Anything after that is always somewhere else.  Carter’s 2nd birthday was at our church with a bouncy house (Garrett’s probably will be the same) and his 3rd birthday was at Jump Zone in Pelham and his 4th birthday coming up in December will be at Let’s Play on Hwy 280. 

Since his birthday is so close to Halloween it was natural to do a Halloween themed party.  I won’t do this every year from here on out, that’s just not fair to the poor kid.  But it made the first party easier.  We took a video of Garrett getting into his cake.  You can see it here.

Here’s a few of my favorite pictures from the party:

Aren’t the cakes fabulous?!?!  One of my friends mom did them.  She’s fantastic!

Hot dog mummies!!  Gotta love some pinterest!

More pinterest!!  Mummy hand favors!

On the left:  Garrett was LOVING his gift from Cici and Uncle Jeff.  That picture was taken mid belly laugh!  And on the right:  Best gift ever.  Carter shockingly got 2 gifts at his brother’s birthday party.  One was a firetruck and he has been carrying around with him everywhere.  And the other was this bad boy.  My brother in law ordered a Buick iron on from Ebay and bought Carter a jacket.  He is IN LOVE with this thing!!!

This was the best I could get of the four of us!

We had so much fun!  I can’t believe he’s just days away from being O-N-E!!!!  Happy birthday sweet boy!!!

Carter’s Third Birthday Party

As you can see, I’m trying to catch up on blogposts today.  Justin is at church with Carter while I’m at home with Garrett (momma didn’t sleep well last night and didn’t quite feel like going to church today).  So anyway, Carter turned three years old on December 28th.  His birthday party was on Saturday the 27th at a place called Pump It Up.  It’s basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses for kids to jump around.  Carter LOVES  bouncy house so I knew this was going to be the perfect place for his birthday party.  When you have a party there, you have the entire place rented out for two hours.  You start in one room that has a few bouncy houses/slides and stay there for about 45 minutes, then you go to another room of other bouncy houses/slides for another 45 minutes or so.  Then you go to the party room where you cut the cake and open presents.  I cannot begin to express how much fun that Carter had at this place!  It was the perfect place!!!  The only bad thing was that a bunch of his friends couldn’t come.  It’s the downside of having a birthday so close to Christmas.  Lots of his friends were out of town visiting family.  On top of that, there’s an insane flu epidemic and I got several responses from parents who had the flu or whose kids were sick and didn’t want them being around other kids to get them sick.  He still had a good turnout, I was just sad that a lot of his friends weren’t able to make it.

Here’s a few pictures from the day:

This was the first room.  I know….Heaven for a three year old!

One of Carter’s classmates, Anika.

Our friends two boys, Vaughn and Fisher.

Sweet Mary and James, who wasn’t quite old enough to slide down the big slides.

 

Clearly Carter and his cousin Celia are having a BLAST.

One of the slides was so tall and climbing this thing to get to the top of it was pretty difficult, even for me!  I can only imagine it was like Mount Everest to a three year old!

This may have been a record for the longest Garrett had been awake.  He was awake in my mom’s arms the ENTIRE party.  I don’t think he’s ever stayed awake that long!

 

Some of my favorite mommas!

And here’s several “in action” shots using the slide…forgive the fact that a lot of these are blurry because it’s impossible to get a good picture when kids and adults go that fast down a slide!

   

 

These two LOVE each other!!!  And apparently they both say “cheese” by grinding their teeth together!!

 

All the kids had a blast and I found a new place to take Carter that’s not the Zoo or the McWane Center or the park.  He’ll love coming to open play at Pump It Up!!!  Happy Birthday my sweet baby!!!!

#60 - Carter’s 2nd Birthday Party

Number 60 on my 101 List was to throw and even more memorable birthday party for Carter this year than we did last year.  I loved Carter’s party last year, but let’s be honest.  He will never remember it (he won’t really remember this one either though) because 12 months old is just so young, but at 2 years old….it was FUN watching Carter play at his party this year.  We had a bouncy house that he was obsessed with and Justin crawled in there with him most of the time.  He had so much fun!!!

This year, well last year technically, Carter’s birthday fell on the actual day of his birthday party.  December 28th was the day he came into the world and it was the day we celebrated him turning 2!!!  Carter loves….I mean LOVES the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.  So I made his birthday party theme all about Cookie Monster.  I even ordered me a Cookie Monster shirt to wear during the party!

How cute is his shirt?!?!  Got it off Etsy…so perfect for the occasion!

Edgar’s Bakery did his cake.  LOVED it!

 

Just a few of my favorite girls!

We had the party in the gym at our church.  We rented a bouncy house and it was a total hit!

Sesame Street goody bags for the kiddos!

Probably should have put the cookies where he couldn’t reach them!

How sweet are they?!?!  This is Hilly (short for Hilary).  She’s the daughter of a girl I used to work with.  Both are beautiful blonde hair blue eyed babies!

            

It was a great day and we are so grateful for friends and family that love Carter as much as they do and showered him with gifts.