Birthday Parties

Monkey girl's 3rd birthday is coming up soon and we've started planning a small party for her. The bounce house I posted about previously just arrived yesterday. Her Strawberry Shortcake party supplies came last week and are very cute. I ordered 18 sippy cups since most of the invitees are also around 3. I figured the sippy cups would be nice because then they can also take them home. Goody bags are also enroute with some small toys and my kids favorite fruit leather and fruit pouches.

I was originally thinking of making Pioneer Woman's Strawberry Shortcake cake, but after a trial run, it's pretty time consuming to make and I'm not sure the kids would be huge fans of it. It was absolutely delicious though if anyone wants to try it. I completely endorse it for consumption, just not necessarily a 3 year old's birthday party. My next thought is to make 3 sets of cupcakes: strawberry, lemon, and lime. I tend to over think things sometimes so it might be wiser to scale that down. We'll see. There are 16 children on the invitee list plus my two monkeys and I'm anticipating that maybe half will come.

I'd also read about a cute game called Pupcake's mess and we were thinking of doing that, but once again, I'm reconsidering that. We'd buy the little strawberry candies, spread them out over the deck and hand each child a bag to collect as many candies as they could and help clean up Pupcake's mess. The party will be two hours. After going to a friend's 3 year old's birthday party, I'm convinced that is a good length of time. It's just enough time to play outside, eat cake/ice cream, open presents, and play a little more before heading home. Now we just have to hope it doesn't rain. Plus we're hoping to get the deck finally finished this weekend. The party's just the little push we need to get us going again.

I'm looking forward to the party and I feel like I'm pretty well prepared for it already. Finishing the deck, picking up a couple of last minute items, and getting carpet cleaners out here should just about round out my to-do list. I think we might take a friend's idea though and only have parties for the kids every two years. In the alternate year, we'd just celebrate with family. Monkey girl is already looking forward to it and talking about it. The part I'm looking forward to is watching her enjoy her special day.