Wow, it has been a long minute (again) since I have blogged. I pledge that I will start being better. Actually a huge part of my issue is that my Macbook is now almost 10 years old (a Christmas gift from Josh right after we got married!) and nothing about it seems to be working right, and it doesn't work with all the latest versions and updates coming out and I can't sync my phone to it so I have to text myself the pictures then put them in the blog and it won't put them in chronological order... blah blah blah... or maybe I am just getting old and have no idea how to technology anymore!
Anyway!
As most of you probably know, my little monster turned 2 on February 27th (how is this even possible?!). And I was set on throwing him an awesome bash, that he would not remember, but mom and dad would. The most important part was that he have the best day ever.
Back in January I had booked a private party at Little Explorers. For anyone not familiar, it is a Montessori inspired play group that we go to at least once a week. He loves it there, and I had heard great things about the birthday parties there. Not to mention, if it wasn't happening at my house it would mean I wouldn't have to clean and decorate, then have a bunch of Toddlers (and Adults) destroying stuff and using my bathrooms etc. So it was a no brainer.
The next part was the theme. This was pretty much a no brainer. Finn is really obsessed with very few things, but the boy LOVES trains (Thomas mostly), fish and sealife (we did a SHARK theme last year), and really anything that makes noise or has wheels. So we went with the train/Thomas theme. Seriously, he falls asleep talking about Choo Choos, wakes up talking about them and everything in between.
Really, the decorations were easy to find on Amazon, Etsy and a couple other places. I had a super cute "Birthday Boy" shirt made for him, custom train engineer hat and train whistle,custom cake topper, Thomas candles, cupcake toppers, backdrops, helium balloons etc. It doesn't sound like it, but I really kept it pretty simple as I knew the boys were going to be having too much fun playing at Little Explorers to worry about decorations. If anyone reading this is planning a Thomas themed party, feel free to reach out and I can give you specific links.
Finn isn't in daycare, so he doesn't have much for friends outside of our neighborhood, but luckily, we have a pretty large number or boys (yup pretty much only boys) within walking distance. Of course Nicole and Jackson made the hour drive over too.
Our wonderful neighbor Claudia came with me to Little Explorers to help get set up Josh and Stephanie got Finn ready for the party. Miss Mallory and Miss Amber were fantastic and actually did a ton of the work which made my day so much easier.
Guests started to arrive right on time, and the kids wasted no time playing. Everyone played and visited and snacked for the first hour, then we did cake and gifts for the last 30 minutes with a balloon drop at the end. Finn got so many awesome presents, and everyone loved the cupcakes I got from Sugar Darling Cupcakes, a super cute local shop with a million flavors.
This is just going to basically be a photo dump, so enjoy!
Finn's early birthday gift, his engineer hat and train whistle to take his party.
ice cream, the day before his birthday.
Walking into his party... he was so excited to see all the Choo Choo stuff.
Food!
And gifts!
more playing.
The party was so great, and flew by, and I think we all had some tired kiddos!
Since Finn's party was actually the day before his birthday, we had a mini party with just the 4 of us the next day.
I made birthday cake pancakes.
We actually didn't eat his cake at his party, so we used it on his actual birthday again, and this time we got to eat it... so good!
Thank you to everyone for all the gifts, and to everyone that came to and helped with the party, you made the day so amazing!