3rd Birthday Party

For the last two birthdays, we've had friends and family over the second weekend in July to celebrate Brennan's birthday, but with a July 11 due date, I knew I had to plan something different this year. Brennan understood what it meant to have a birthday this year, so I didn't want to just skip a party. We decided to have a small party with local friends, who have children that are Brennan's age. We figured we would celebrate with family individually, as they come to meet the baby this summer. We ended up having four families here on Saturday and had a great time. We rented a bounce castle from Northern Virginia Party Rentals and the service was fantastic. This bounce house was in our front yard from 8 AM - 8:15 PM! The only downside to renting this was that Brennan thought it was his to keep and was in tears when they came to take it down.
The party was pirate themed and I set out a treasure chest table for the goodie bags. Thanks to Pete and Meg, who had given Brennan that buried treasure chest last month, when we were on Long Island, I pretty much had everything I needed to stage the table!

I made pirate cupcakes for the party and created the serving tray by gluing antique-esque scrapbook paper to a foam backed poster board. I put the ship together using a little craft set that I found at Michael's.

Here is a close-up of the cupcakes. I think they came pretty good, although they took longer to decorate than I expected! Nearly 3 hours for just 24 cupcakes. But, I was pleased with the finished product and Brennan was really excited about the pirate cupcakes, so it was definitely worth it!

Here is Brennan smiling as we were getting ready to sing happy birthday.

After cupcakes, we decided to try opening gifts. This was the first time we did gift opening at the party and Brennan did great with it. He sat in his little chair, opened the gifts, showed them off and with a little prompting, thanked everyone for their presents. He got some really nice new toys that we have been playing with all weekend.

Brennan was in his pirate jacket all party long, but I had bought pirate costumes for all the kids. After we did the gifts, the kids were excited to dress up. The costumes seem to give them an extra burst of energy and they were running around the house, going nuts with their foam swords. Thankfully, no one got hurt.

Brian engaged them in a little sword fight.

All in all, we had a great time and want to thank everyone who came out to celebrate with Brennan!