We decided to throw Jack another birthday party this year since it was his last chance to be the center of attention (and our last chance to have our friends over) for a while. His birthday fell on Easter weekend, so we planned the party instead for the last weekend in March. We wanted to keep things super easy since I was about 37 weeks pregnant. That meant Party City decor, grocery store cake, and the bare minimum food at our house. Nothing fancy and definitely nothing pinterest worthy.
We took Jack to Party City a few weeks before to try to let him pick out the theme. He chose Mickey but we overuled him because he had never really mentioned Mickey before and we thought he'd prefer an Elmo theme. Although since then, he has been obsessed with Mickey so maybe we should've just let him pick....Either way, we ended up going with Sesame Street.
I made a quick banner for a Facebook invite and invited just a "few" people...which turned out to be about 16 adults and 8 children who RSVPed yes.
We got our Sesame Street cake from the local grocery store...
And I prepared a few snacks - just veggies, fruit, and a couple dips - and had hamburgers and brats. Super easy but delicious.
Within a few minutes of the kids arriving, we already had a few fingerprints in the cake. Pres was the first culprit followed by Logan a few minutes later. Oh, 2 year olds.
We put a bunch of chairs and toys in the backyard and throughout the house and just let people wander. We had a pretty good system of zone parenting going on that made everyone's life easier.
Jack had a blast playing with all his friends. Oh, and I also made Jack a birthday crown. He likes the hats he makes a daycare so much I figured he would actually wear one like this. I knew there was no way he'd wear one of those pointy ones with the awful string around the chin.
Our guests were mostly other parents but our best bud Fabian bravely came as the only single, kidless guest. What a true friend!
The afternoon flew by and before we knew it; it was already 6pm and we hadn't even done cake! The guests were getting a little antsy to get home with their little ones so we quickly sang Happy Birthday and let Jack blow out the candles.
Jack seemed to like being the center of attention. And he definitely liked the cake and ice cream.
After cake, most of our friends took off except our neighbors and our most reliable go-all-night friends Jasmine and Broc. We spent another hour or so letting the kids run around the front yard with balloons while we finally got a chance to relax and drink a few beers (or everyone but me did...)
The party came to an end with a big hug from my birthday boy and his best bud Pres. Jack had such a blast. He is still talking about his "mo-mo party" and remembers his "friends" and "cake" the most.
Since we never really got around to opening presents at the party (which I was super bummed about, I'm in the open-presents-at-the-party camp), we had to do most of them the next morning. Jack got all sorts of nice gifts from his friends and even some in the mail from his grandparents.
One of his favorites was a little Thomas the train bubble whistle. It makes blowing bubbles so much easier and fun!
He also liked playing with his new sand toys...even without sand. He has quite an imagination.
Joey had been wanting to get him a bike for the evenings so he used his birthday as an excuse to finally buy it. We bought a radio flyer one that can grow with him but it made a horrible clicking noise when Jack put his feet on the pedals so we ended up returning it. He did get to take one (super annoying clicking) ride around the block though.
Friday night of that week was his actual birthday so we took him out for pizza and ice cream. Who am I kidding though? It was just as much for us and it was for him. :)
And that concluded Jack's birthday week! We can't believe our little man is 2!
EASTER
That next weekend was Easter. We didn't go all out with the Easter bunny thing because we thought Jack was too little. However we already had a basket because we were going to do an egg hunt so we just put a couple things in there last minute and hid it behind the chair. We didn't even really have to explain the concept to Jack. We just told him that we hid a basket for him and he found it in like 10 seconds. I was impressed.
We gave him a chocolate bunny but only let him have one bite. He loved it.
Later that morning a couple of my best mom friends came over with their husbands and little ones and we had a nice brunch and did an Easter egg hunt. We decided it would be better to do one at home than to fight the crowds with a public one. Here is Jack with his buddies William and Logan.
We hid about 50-60 eggs in the yard and let them loose. Logan is definitely the most athletic of the boys. He took off and probably got over half the eggs himself.
Jack was a little more slow and cautious but he still found his fair share of eggs.
After all the eggs were found, the boys started tearing them open. Jack and Logan were just stuffing the food snacks (goldfish, fruit snacks, some m&ms, and jelly beans) in their mouths as fast as they could. William just opened all the eggs up and dumped them in a pile on the grass.
After a few eggs, we took the basket away from Jack and he started to eat from the pile William made in the grass. He was stuffing his cheeks as fast as he could. It was hard to stop him! He's such a little piglet!
After the egg hunt, we took a group shot. It's nice to have good friends to spend holidays with when family is so far away!
And we took our last family portrait as a family of 3.
Next up, Kara's birth story!
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