Jeremy's 3rd Birthday

Jeremy's birthday was October 11 and he turned 3! As opposed to previous birthdays in which he was clueless, this year, he was definitely involved in a lot of the planning of his party. He insisted on having a Cars-themed party, he knew which friends he wanted to invite, and what he wanted for his birthday gifts (anything with wheels).

I love parties, so despite working full-time this year and not having a lot of free time, I still found time to plan and prepare for this special event. Here are some details (a lot of these ideas came from the Internet):We set up a mini racetrack in our backyard. The kids took turns racing each other in Lightning McQueen and The King cardboard box cars (I ran out of time to do The King's spoiler on the back of his car). I got the idea from this website and am so proud of how these turned out!

We also had a pinata, the first one we've ever had! It was a pull-string one, so we didn't have to experience toddlers waving a bat around. Jeremy was the first to go, and the string he picked was actually "the" one. He didn't pull it hard enough for everything to come out, and the kids didn't realize what had happened. So Jason loosely tied the string to the top, and all of the kids got to pull strings until there were only a few left. All of the adults knew what had happened, so we got a pretty good laugh over that.
For dinner, the main menu consisted of food you might get at a racetrack: burgers and hotdogs. In addition, we had Doc's Guac and Chips, Mack-a-roni Salad, Sally's Fruit Salad, Chick's Dipsticks (celery/carrot sticks), Mater's Motor Oil (chocolate milk), Fillmore's Organic Fuel (bottled water), and Antifreeze (bottles of blue colored sugarfree fruit punch).

Here is Jeremy and his birthday cake! This is the best picture I got of him all evening!

I think the cake turned out really well. I can't take credit for it. Realizing how much time I didn't have, I cheated this year- the actual cake was store-bought, and I decorated the top. I made the racetrack in the form of a "3," rocks, and cacti out of marshmallow fondant, and I added the three (new) cars. Jeremy loved it, and that's what matters!

On the actual day of Jeremy's birthday, his daycare threw him a party in which he got another Cars cake. Even his daycare knows about his love of Cars! We asked what he wanted for his special birthday dinner and he said, "Peanut budder" (that's his way of saying peanut butter & jelly sandwiches- he can't get enough of those). Well, after some convincing, he agreed that we could have pizza. It seems that it has become a tradition for us to go to Coldstone for ice cream on our "actual" birthdays. After singing Happy Birthday and letting him blow out his candle, our family of four sat and enjoyed some family time together.

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet "big" boy, Jeremy! Thank you to everyone who came to his party, and thank you to everyone who has been a significant part of Jeremy's life! (more pictures in the photo album on the right).