Can you even believe that this sweet, adorable, wild little boy is already 3 years old?
This year was Jimmie's first "friends" birthday party. I wanted to do something that was fun for the kids involved. What better way to do that than with a big mess?!
I have to say, I had a ton of fun planning this one and it was by far, the easiest party I've ever thrown with the smallest amount of prep work. Woohoo for that!
Here's our invitations for this year:
We started off with our messy food prep. This little 12 pack of aprons was a cheap steal from Amazon. Gotta love a good deal!
Little Chefs
For lunch, we made pizza bagels! Pizza is one of Jimmie's favorite foods.
My mom had these fun little lunch trays that we took advantage of. It worked well to be able to put the sauce, the cheese, the toppings in all of the different sections.
Toppings... sausage, pepperoni, pineapple & ham, olives!
Once they got their pizzas all assembled, we stuck them in the oven to bake for a few minutes.
Our excited little boy who, for in the weeks leading up to it, believed "birthday" meant "birthday cake"! He was so excited to eat his "birthday"!
I put some butcher paper on the table for them to color on during any transition time.
Hard at work...
Mr. Karsten! We love having him around here now!
This boy was a great help to all the little kids around!
CHOW TIME!
After the pizza, it was time to decorate cupcakes!
(This was by far my favorite part of it all... bake the cupcakes and don't decorate a thing!)
And boy, did they love it!
We just rinsed off the same trays and did the cupcakes right on there. Icing on the tray and toppings in the dividers
Crushed Oreos, Fruit Loops, fruit snacks, and mini chocolate chips!
Such concentration on these little faces...
Oh yeah, and they tasted pretty yummy too!
Lucy, our only girl (besides Lorelei), at the party took the longest to make her cupcake. What can I say...girls have this specific attention to detail thing going for them. The little happy cupcake maker inside of me loved to watch this girl work.
Doesn't look like Karsten enjoyed it at all, huh?
Lorelei got a little help from Daddy
Part Two
For the second part of the party, we went outside. I was a little nervous to see how this would go since it was one of the hotter days outside! I set up a few different stations and just let the kids go to whichever ones they want, whenever they'd like. It was pretty nice to not have to worry about overly structured and scheduled time!
Dino Dig
The Dino Dig station was probably one of the most popular. Because who doesn't like digging in sand?! Kids of all ages had a blast with this. I hid little plastic dinosaurs all throughout the sand in the sand table and let them pan and dig for the dinosaurs to put into their tins. It was a lot of fun!
Bubble Bonanza
Pretty self explanatory! We filled the Rubbermaid with bubble solution and also let them play with the bubble wands. Man, you forget how much fun bubbles can be!
Color Creations
The idea behind this was obviously just to color on the patio with sidewalk chalk. But as it was in the high 80's and SUPER sunny, that patio was pretty hot. Grandpa thought he'd show Jimmie what it was all about!
Donut Dare
Some people chose to do the donut on the string. I thought that might be too hard for younger kids so we also gave them the option to put it on the plate and eat it with their hands behind their back.
Or of course, they had the option of just....eating it. Ha!
Awesome Art
I loved the idea behind this one but it was a little difficult to execute. We didn't want to get paint on my parent's nice patio so we were lacking a totally flat surface. It'd be easier to do on a junky sidewalk or blacktop that you would just hose off afterwards. Anyway, we just took some washable children's paint and plopped it out across some rolls of paper in the yard. Then you let the kids run on it! We had a little bucket of water nearby to rinse feet off in afterwards.
Lorelei getting some help from Daddy!
The finished products
The Rinse Off!
We had a lot of fun with this part. We were messy, sweaty, and just dirty from being outside. We cooled off and cleaned off in a few different ways...
We filled these "Magic Water Balloons" and had a water balloon fight! I have to say, they worked pretty well! After reading reviews I learned that you have to fill them RIGHT before you use them or else they gradually leak water. We filled hundreds of balloons in minutes! (And boy, did they go through them just as fast!) All you have to do is hook it to the hose, turn it on, and when the balloons get heavy enough, they drop off and a tiny rubber band closes the hole, sealing the balloon.
I don't have any pictures of the fight because I was filling the balloons.
Since we already had the kiddie pool out to splash in, we filled some water guns in that pool too. That was a big hit with the older kids!
And we obviously had the fire hydrant sprinkler out for the kids to run through!
And of course, Lucy totally rocked her Frozen bathing suit...diva pose and all ;)
The rinse off was great because it allowed the kids to get cleaned off while mostly the parents just sat back and visited.
Happy Birthday To You!
We all sure love this little boy. Every day he says something that cracks me up and something else that blows me away. He is just like a little sponge who absorbs every little thing around him (sometimes good AND bad!) I love getting to be his Mommy and am so grateful for him and his fun, sensitive little spirit.
