Friday, May 31, 2013

Happy 3rd birthday Henry!!!

My baby boy is three years old! How did this happen?! I remember very vividly going to the hospital to have this little miracle and now he is three! As much as this firecracker has grown and learned in his first three years, I have learned three times as much about being a mama. He has helped me learn how to be more flexible, patient, understanding and loving. I am far from any of these things but I am getting better every day thanks to Henry. I will do some stats on Henry in a later blog (hopefully!). This one is all about my baby's third birthday party! Henry's first birthday party was kind of a bummer. James and I had just been in the accident and I was barely up to walking, let alone having a party. So it was very small but thankfully, Henry didn't care one bit. His second birthday party was better. We were in a much better place and I felt way more prepared. We had that party at Springs. But still, due to limited space, it was rather small. This time, I wanted anyone and everyone to come and I wanted it to be just plain fun! Enter the jumping castle! There was no set number on how many people could come and there was a large window of time for people to come and go as they pleased. If I do say so myself, it was a pretty dang fun party! I think Henry had a blast :) I wanted to be sure there were plenty of pictures so please enjoy a small fraction of the pictures from my baby boy's third birthday party :) 

Henry is usually a pretty early riser... except on any day that we have plans to do something early, then he's the last one up. We had arranged for the jumping castle to be at our house at 8:00 am. Henry slept through the entire set up. I didn't want to wake him because I was pretty sure he wouldn't get a nap so he needed to sleep as late as possible. My mom, Starla and Sean also arrived before Henry was even awake. Henry still thinks to this day that Sean brought the jumping castle! 


 Blowing up the jumping castle! This was the only set up shot I was able to get because it was done so quickly! 


 Ta-da! Toy Story themed of course, or as Henry still calls it, Woody/Buzz. 


 Henry finally woke up after the set up and ran for the backyard (please excuse his bed head!).  


 He was in awe! 


 See? Sean brought him a jumping castle! 


 After he gobbled down breakfast (in retrospect maybe not the best idea to have him eat and then jump but, oh well) he was off to try it out. He was hesitant at first but he very quickly got the hang of it :) 


 Check out the air on this kid! 


Even Nana got in on the action :) 


Falling down was just as fun as jumping! 


Sometimes he needed a little break. He just loved it in there. 


Back to jumping! 


Henry and Sean had a blast together. 


My baby sister and I have a tank top karmic connection. Without knowing it, we put on the same shirt on more than one occasion :) We look totally alike, right? 


Birthday boy in his party hat. 


Henry, Sean and Starla


Three little Chandlers. 


Auntie Em and Henry


Nana and Henry 


Mama and Henry (I think he was done with pictures at this point!) 


Once everyone else arrived, I kinda slacked on the pictures. There were other people here, I swear! 


Jumping castle? Psh! We'd rather swing! 


Singing to the birthday boy! 


I think he was surprised at the fact that everyone was singing to him :) 


Blow! 


Yum! I was surprised he ate the cupcake, he usually doesn't. 


Favorite part was the frosting of course. 


Auntie Zee Zee came too! 


Neglected to get her with Henry, whoops. 


My brother Matt got in on the fun too! Who could resist really? 


Group shot! Not sure who took this or where I was, but I'm glad someone took this. It is so cute!

 I actually got in the jumping castle too but in typical mama fashion, I took all the pics and there are none of me in there :) 


Nana and Henry 


Starla and Sean 

Our friends Amy and Mike stopped by with their little three month old daughter. Henry LOVED her! I was so glad he seemed to liked her, it was good practice for when our little girl comes along. 


Henry and Madelyn 


What is this?!?


Henry even wanted to read her a story. I didn't get a picture of it, but Amy did. So cute! 

We didn't open presents at the party. Thank you to everyone who brought Henry presents, he loved everything! We weren't going to open presents this day anyway since Henry's real birthday was still a week or so away. But my mom wasn't going to be around for Henry's bday so we opened her present. 


Reading the card. 


Woody and Buzz of course. 


Ripping it open.


Jesse!!! Henry has been asking for a "big Jesse" for a while now. He was thrilled to get this! 


We heard Jesse yodel about a billion times that day. 


Thank you nana! 


Closest I could get to looking at the camera and smiling :) 


The round-up gang together again! :) 


Happy boy :) 

We had gotten the jumping castle for 6 hours, from 8-2. When 2 o'clock rolled around, the people called and said they would be late picking it up. No problem! Henry was thrilled to be able to jump some more. Long story short, they didn't come pick up the jumping castle until about 8 that night! Henry got lots of jumping time! :) 


Yay, more jumping time! 


Yippee! 


King of the castle :) 


Jumping in the dark










Henry had so much fun with his family and friends at his jumping castle party. It was exactly what we wanted: quick, easy, fun and casual. Thank you to everyone who came and had fun with our big guy. He really is amazing... in my humble opinion :)