Elliel D. turns 3!

Ahh, so hard to believe my first born is 3 years old.  It seems like she is going to be 16 tomorrow.

The fun part about her turning 3 was that she was actually into the whole birthday/birthday party thing.  When asked about what she wanted for her birthday, she kept repeating an owl.  This is from Lisa D's birthday which was celebrated at our house this summer.  I decorated an owl on her birthday cake in buttercream and apparently this must be Ellie's only birthday association.  However, this made things easy because owls are very popular right now so it wasn't difficult to make an owl themed birthday party.

Unless of course you are me, and make a bigger deal out of everything than needs to be.  My to-do list the week before her birthday was astronomical.  I essentially obsessed about the party ahead of time, determined not to be trying to do everything at the last minute.  I mean, this might be the only time that I can get it done since I am on maternity leave right?

Yeah, except I keep seeming to forget that maternity leave IS NOT VACATION!  I feel like since I am not at work it should be a vacation.  Wrong. 

The other difficult thing about Ellie's birthday is that it is the day after Mike and I's anniversary.  So if we do anything then it is always the night before and so I lose that precious last minute crunch time.  This year, we had even bigger plans since we were going into the city for the night.  So essentially everything had to be done by Sat morning.  I was in full force.

The party was a success.  There were kids, party favor bags, chaos, more chaos, presents, pizza, cake and ice cream.  I planned a small activity for the kids (compliments of Maria, the birthday party extraordinare!) and wine for the adults.  Ellie had a great time and I couldn't have been more proud of her and happy that she enjoyed her "birfday" so much.

This actually has nothing to do with her birthday. She wears this tiara like its a uniform and had jelly all over her face. 

The party set up

Ellie and her friend Serene, and Serene's mom Lisa

It was so much fun to have two of my friends from med school there with their kids.  We're all grown up..

Yana with Sam, Erika with Ethan and Brian (Yana's husband)

The blocks are about to come out

Ben Blitz with his party favor bag

Brian with his two sons, Sammy and Ben

Ethan

The cake.  I was very proud of the cake.  Only one salad plate and two crystal wine glasses were broken in the making of this cake.

I only teared up while singing to her this year.

She was great.  I thought she might get a little overwhelmed having everyone singing to her and being the center of attention.

She was happy to eat her cake and let Mike and Serene open her presents.

Getting a ride in her new wagon from Mimi and Popo

Popo spent the night and had some quality one on one time with Ellie D on her actual birthday

We got her an umbrella and rain boots which she loved.  We went out for a walk around the block later that afternoon and it acutally started to rain on us!  It was perfect.