3 years

As with most holidays lately, we celebrated Eli's 3rd birthday multiple times. Since his actual birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, we held his party the Saturday before. And since we have a yard this year, we decided to have the party at home. Most of the celebrating took place indoors, but there was some pinata action out back.

The theme this year was Cat in the Hat.  We were at Michael's one day and passed a Dr. Seuss display and I had had that theme in mind specifically as one that would be fun to plan.  I asked Elias what he thought of a Cat in the Hat party and he said yes.  So I asked him several more times several days later and the positive response seemed to stick (you never know with these toddlers).

I stocked up on a bunch of Dr. Seuss themed paper products and favor bag items at both Micheal's and Joann, which is where I got the letters I used to make the bunting/banner.

For the food, my thought was green (deviled) eggs and ham (platter...plus a little turkey, roast beef, and various cheeses).  If I had to do it again, based on tips I picked up at the three birthday parties we attended the following weekend, I'd offer pre-made sandwiches instead.

I made the cupcakes myself, which is another thing I shall henceforth outsource (I knew I should've contacted the gal behind Oakland's own James and the Giant Cupcake, who provided our brunch-y cupcakes at last year's birthday bash...I'm sure she could've made killer Cat in the Hat cupcakes.  Oh well, lesson learned.).  My original idea was a red velvet version of this "zebra cake", thinking I could alternate vanilla and red velvet to mock the stripes of the Cat's Hat. Then I saw all these cute - and relatively simple-looking - cupcake decorations when I did an image search for general party ideas and thought, I could do that.  I ran out of time to make the cake from scratch so I opted for the tried and true Trader Joe's box mixes and was able to make enough for 24 cupcakes for the party and two layers that I froze to decorate during the week for the daycare crew.

Only problem was I failed to add the entire cup of melted butter to the vanilla cake.  I realized this when I went to clean up after popping the cupcakes/cake in the oven and spotting the bowl o' butter on the counter. D'oh!  And I'm certainly not blaming the birthday boy but I was a tiny bit distracted by my three-foot assistant.  Just sayin'.  Anyway, in the end Neal and I decided they tasted good enough (the fact that they were sort of marbled with the chocolate cake helped) so I stuck with the low-butter cupcakes and decorated them to look like fried eggs with green yolks (a green candy melt atop white frosting), the Cat's hat (marshmallows dipped in melted red-colored white chocolate - you can find the candy melts at Michael's, for example), and what was supposed to look like Things 1 and 2, except I never got around to putting the labels on the cupcake wrappers.  So you can see why cupcakes are the kind of thing I'll leave to paid professionals next year.

Oh well. The kids didn't seem to mind!

The goody bags, on the other hand, I was pretty pleased with.  Initially I stressed over the bag itself, since last year I used reusable canvas tote bags with red bandanas instead of tissue paper.  Not that it went with our train theme so perfectly but because it was something the kids could reuse.  This year I thought the perfect Cat in the Hat goody bag should be a box - as in the red "box of fun" that the Cat brings in, the box of course containing Things 1 and 2.  But it turns out gift boxes are prohibitively expensive, even with a relatively small social circle invited!  So I went with small paper gift bags, with a "bag of fun" sticker and personalized hang-tag.

I totally scored with these spiky, rubbery balls I picked up at Target.  Don't you think they look like Thing 1 or 2 hiding in the gift bag??  Well, I'm not sure anyone else got that but I was pretty pleased with myself.  Other goodies included green egg soap:

...and crayon rolls made with Cat in the Hat fabric:

These I purchased on Etsy, of course.  As well as the shirt Elias wore that day, made by this Etsy seller, seen here in action, pre- and post-pinata's demise:

So, yeah, hosting a party at home is a lot of work but I'm into this kind of stuff so I enjoyed it.  I also made the invites, but I've yet to photograph and list them in my shop (because, of course, they're going in my shop!).  The only thing I'd do differently is the cupcakes.  I'd definitely leave those to a pro and I'm guessing this may be the last year I can get away with not really having any planned activities for the little ones.  I don't know...Maybe one more year?

On his actual birthday (you see, we haven't even made it to the actual day yet!) I asked Elias if he'd rather stay home with Mommy for a bonus "Mommy day" or go to Eryn's house.  His answer changed a few times, not surprisingly, but in the end he opted to hang out with me.  It was pretty warm that day so I decided it would be a perfect day to drive out to San Francisco's Ocean beach, typically better suited for evening bonfires.  But when it's 90 in Oakland, it's a perfect 75 on the beaches of San Francisco.  We packed a picnic lunch and changed clothes, in one way or another, a total of three times.  He napped on the way home (making this a truly magical day) and then we met up with Daddy as soon as he was done with work for an early dinner at Fenton's, complete with the now traditional shared banana split.  We were even seated at the same table we got last year! (Let me just add, after looking at that post, written in August of last year, that I no longer feel so bad that this post is exactly one month late.)

So what's in store for Eli's fourth year?  Well, to start, we're amping up the potty-training efforts as the transition to preschool is just a month and a half away!  Elias has intermittently gone numbers 1 and 2 in both a training potty and a smaller seat that sits on the regular toilet and tends to do number 1 standing up.  Both that detail and the fact that he's gone number 2 about half-a-dozen times surprised me.  But he continues to refuse to wear underwear and/or go on the potty many days.  So while I'd say the gradual process has been successful and surprisingly easier than I thought it would be, now that preschool and their fully potty-trained policy is looming, I'm pretty sure we'll do the three-day-weekend-run-around-naked-thing to seal the deal in early to mid-August.  Then, of course, preschool, a transition I'm mostly excited about and only a tiny bit apprehensive.  And the apprehension is more along the lines of opening a big box, the contents of which are a total mystery.  Mostly, I'm really excited to see how Elias will transition to suddenly being around five times more kids than he's used to and several more teachers.  Hey, at least we already have a lunch box.

Well, buddy, here's to another great year full of interesting challenges and wonderful surprises!