So this year was going to be the "normal" year when we're in our own house as a family of four, doing a nice party with lovely friends. Saturday night was the peak of my stress, with Eric having an unknown illness and jelly just not setting! (btw Hartleys blue sparkly jelly will not set over a layer of Hartleys green regular jelly, and Eric's fine.) It would be so easy to organise a kids party if you didn't have kids slowing you down.
We had a pirate theme. So we decorated the house with Somalian flags and when the children came: locked them up and wrote ransom notes. Just kidding, not that kind of pirate... the friendly imaginary kind! I went a bit mental with the pirate stuff. There was pirate facepainting, pirate tattoos, pirate stickers, pirate bunting, pin the eye patch on the pirate, musical pirates (similar to musical statues) I could go on...
My parents old unwanted charts came in handy and I enjoyed decorating our photos.
I saw some great pass the parcel tactics. Firstly just hold on to the parcel till it's so awkward that someone stops the music; nice one Harriet. Or the best one, join the game at the end when everyone has received sweets and so the only thing left to win is the main prize which then has to go to you; genius Jessica! I asked Percy who won pass the parcel and he said "everyone" so that was nice.
A lot of people came! We have become a family of four since last birthday and so have a lot of our friends, so you only really need two families to have a full house. I think we had 8 families and us!
We didn't have any extended family (too little room, we're having a separate thing for them next weekend) and at the end of the party the God parents (plus Jenn, minus Lydia) came for a more grown up hang out.
Percy was super excited, when he's in a good mood he's the cutest kid ever. An hour after going to bed last night he woke up saying "am I 3 yet?" but when he actually got up and came into our room I sang happy birthday to him and he said "is it my birthday today?" Then he was really excited to see all the pirate decorations everywhere and the cake. He demanded to cut it like they do at weddings.
I loved seeing him open his presents. He's not got to the stage of just opening and then moving on to the next one yet so everything he opened he wanted to play with straight away. which was really nice, and also the reason most of his presents are still unopened. We got him extra bits towards his favourite toys, so extra train track with lots of junctions and an emily train (from Thomas the Tank Engine) and a big Duplo base. He also received from Jenn, a Brio train with batteries, that goes by itself both forward and backward! He went mental for that. We made a simple circle and he just kept making it go forward and then back again and giggling.
He had a slightly strange reaction to Rachel's beautiful hand made elephant. He did a weird noise and when we asked if he was ok he said "the elephant is crying because he misses his family" clever way to manipulate people into knitting more stuff for you Percy. Luckily we found another elephant toy to be his family.
I can't believe we've got a 3 year old. But I'm also genuinely blown away by how many wonderful friends we have and how lucky we are. Considering last year I was pregnant and homeless, I feel so blessed to have a lovely house and a healthy baby. If fact now would be a good time to announce I'm going to have a thanksgiving brunch on November 25th, the Saturday after American Thanksgiving, to raise money for the Whitechapel Centre who work with actual real homeless people, not just people like us who were a bit between houses living with friends.
Happy 3rd Bithday Percy Samuel Jones
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