Happy Birthday Nicole! 3!

 Nicole was born March 30th 2009, but because Matt and I will be out of town on the 30th for our anniversary, we decided to celebrate Nicole's Birthday a week early this year. Ironically, we celebrated on the 24th, our anniversary.

Nicole decided to have a Mickey Mouse themed party because she loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. That worked out quite well because I had seen ideas for Mickey parties on Pinterest.

I made this banner for Nicole for her birthday.

Here is my beautiful 3 year old birthday girl!

I was prepping for this party for days. Making the banner, buying the food, making cupcakes, cleaning, buying presents, games, party favors, etc. This was my first time throwing a children's birthday party and I have to say that it is a LOT of work! Thank goodness Matt and I are only giving our children a "friend" party every other year because I don't think that I could do this every year.

So, my decorations for the party were very minimal. Just the banner, balloons, and I made Minnie Mouse cupcakes.

I tried really hard to plan out each element of the party ahead of time, but Matt obviously had a better idea of how these things go because he enhanced my plans and made them better. Matt set up a table in the backyard and took out all of our sports equipment and some of the kids toys and that was pivotal! As people and kids arrived, they grabbed a corn dog or a hot dog (because it was a hot-diggity-dog lunch) and headed out to the backyard to eat and play in the backyard. This totally saved my house from excessive mess and entertained the kids while they were eating. I am so grateful that we have a backyard with a fence now!

Damon was in heaven because there were balls. He kept signing "ball."

Here are the kids playing. You can see Nicole over by the fence. She went over there to cry. I don't know why she was crying, but it wouldn't be a birthday without the birthday kid crying right?

Here is everyone eating at our brand new folding table that we got for the party.

We let Nicole pick out the chips for the party and she picked these giant Cheetos cheese curls. Dan got a hold of one and loved it! They were a hit with all of the kids. I never would have picked them out because they looked gross, but it was the right choice for kids.

Dan tried to eat the corn dog, but since he doesn't have teeth, it didn't really work out.

After everyone was done eating their hot dog lunch, we played a little "pin the nose on the mouse."

Lucy

Nicole won this game because she totally cheated and opened her eyes while putting her nose on. 

Olivia

Damon

Dan just wanted to look at the thing taped to his hand,  and didn't know why he was putting it on the mouse.

After this game, we moved on to the main event, the PINATA! Matt strung up the pinata in the garage and had spent all week cleaning out the garage so we could play the game in there. It was a little bit of chaos when the kids first saw that pinata, but once we got everyone calmed down, we let the kids take a whack at the pinata youngest to oldest. Luckily, the pinata was strong and all the kids got a couple whacks and the oldest child, Danielle broke it open in the end.

Damon

Olivia was so cute! She was scared to get too close to the pinata and swung from afar.

Coley

Ethan was a little scary with this stick. He was swinging widly.

The kids loved the pinata and everyone got a couple whacks at it. After Pinata, we did presents. Nicole was not inclined to look away from her presents to look at the camera. She was very focused on systematically opening each gift.

tinkerbell plate from Jill

Lalaloopsy, My Little Pony, and Littlest Petshop from Marie

Baby doll with swing/highchair which she loves! From Momma Kimball

Mickey figurines from Corinne.

Backpack and book from me and Matt.

Nicole was very spoiled and got a lot of gifts. Luckily, we learned from Christmas and waited to open any of the gifts until after everyone left. Because Nicole melts down if other kids touch her new toys.

Finally, we finished the party off with cake, which was cupcakes. Then everyone went back outside to eat.

The party was a success! The kids had fun and I had fun and I'm also glad that it is over.