Gray's Pirate Party!

I am sitting down to write this blog post and I am wondering where the time has gone. I can't believe my 'baby' is 3 years old! We had his birthday party the weekend before his birthday, so Mom, Jennifer, and Claire could be here to celebrate with us.

For the second year in a row, San Diego weather foiled our attempts at an outdoor party. It is generally nice outside, with little rainfall every month (and an average of 11.25" a year in the 90's) but somehow Gray's birthday weekend hasn't been so great for outside celebrating. Next year we are going to plan for an inside party and it will probably be beautiful. After the party was all said and done, the 70% chance of rain turned out to be a really bad guess because besides the wind, the weather was fine. 

Josh got a smaller (non-pirate) bounce house than we had originally rented and set it up in the living room. The kids didn't mind jumping indoors, so I guess that turned out alright too. Besides planning for a party in the park and therefore having no real activities for the kiddos, I think everything went pretty smoothly. 

Remove a little furniture and you have an indoor bouncy house!

Gray and Claire jumping pre-party! 

A friend of mine received a cake pop maker for her birthday last month, and she wanted to try it out. We spend about 5 hours that weekend making pirate cake pops. They were a hit with everyone, even though some adults didn't want to eat them because they were so cute. :) I'll be the first to admit that the cake pops were super delicious because we had a few mess-ups that needed to be sampled the night we made them. 

I decided to make the cake myself again this year. I swore last year that I would never do it again, but I guess I had forgotten about how much of a pain it was... This year I had a little more advice on the how to's of cake decorating, so it was a little easier but I had to freeze it at least three times to make the icing cooperate. In the end, I think it turned out ok but I'm going to swear again that I'll never decorate another cake! Maybe this year I can find a cake place in SD that doesn't want $70+ for a cake.... If you know of anyone, I'm open to suggestions. 

Pirate Pops! 

The problem was finding something cute to put them on, so I came up with this solution. 

Pirate Cake! 

Blowing out the candles.

Gray says 'Rrrr Mateys!

As far as Gray was concerned, he had a super party with some of his favorite friends (plus got some awesome gifts)! He is still talking about his pirate party, so I think it was a success!

Now that Gray is three, I think he is more fun than ever. He says so many funny things now and is so much more creative than I ever expected a three year old to be. He loves trains, cars/trucks, dinosaurs, rockets, Cars, Wall-E, and Toy Story. He is potty trained and will tell you that he is Mommy's "big boy" not Mommy's "baby." He continues to amaze me every day with the things he learns and says. Josh and I never realized how lucky we would be to have him in our lives until he actually arrived. We are so thankful for every wonderful minute we have with our little Monkey. Sometimes it's sad that he is growing up so quickly but then again he just keeps getting better with time. I'm sure that all parents are crazy about their kids, but this one is pretty amazing.

Happy 3rd Birthday Gray!