Riley's Birthday Celebration: Part 1

For a birthday that was supposed to be laid back we filled it with a lot of activities - so I will break this up into two posts. Welcome to part one.

We planned on a mellow birthday celebration for Riley's 3rd birthday this year. We had parties for her 1st birthday and 2nd birthday and I didn't want to do that again this year. I knew she'd have her music class in the morning, which she loves, so I figured that would be at least one fun thing we would do, but I wasn't sure what else to do. Of course, she'd have to see her grandparents, but I didn't know what that would look like.

As we were talking with her about her upcoming birthday she noted that she wanted party hats, purple party bags, and a horse for her special day. Where does she get this stuff? It's not like she's gone to many birthday parties, but she does have an excellent memory so who knows. So I decided that after music class we would invite grandma Suzie, grandpa Michael, and papa Frank over for a small celebration. And of course, I was prepared with her requested items.

Unfortunately, the first surprise of the day was not a good one. I opened the shower curtain to find that the tub had backed up. Seeing I have lived off and on in this house for a long time it wasn't the first time I had experienced this. I was hoping it was one of those easy to fix moments, but when I turned on the water to rinse out the dirty backup it started to fill up. Ok, this wouldn't be so easy. Jesse grabbed the plunger and got to work and eventually a huge mass of hair came up, but the water still wasn't going down. Great. I called my dad and asked him to bring over his plumbing snake as I knew we would need something a little more heavy duty to tackle this issue ( I have one, but it's a piece of crap). I then hesitantly took a shower upstairs knowing that it would probably back up into the main floor tub. And it did, but at least it didn't overflow.

Once I was ready, grandma Suzie and grandpa Michael showed up as they were coming to Riley's music class with us. Grandma and I participated with Riley in the class while grandpa and Jesse sat on a couch in the back. Miss Emily, the music instructor, was nice enough to let Riley pick one of her favorite music class activities (dancing with scarves) and she had everyone sing happy birthday to Riley. As usual, Riley had a blast.

Back at home, my dad showed up and the guys headed to the basement to clean out the pipes under the tub while the ladies hung out upstairs having a photo shoot with Riley.

I am so incredibly grateful that we can call my dad for assistance with these things. I know we could fix it on our own (or get help from other family members or call a plumber), but it's nice to know that he's always there. Often when we think we just can't do anymore to fix something he pushes us to try and try again. And in the end he's usually right and we're able to resolve the issue. A big thank you to Jesse and Michael for also helping to fix this!

Riley isn't much of a girly girl, but when I gave her a couple options of what to wear she totally wanted to wear this tutu like skirt. She told me it was like a 'princess'. She also insisted on keeping her name tag sticker on from music class... just in case we forgot who she was apparently.

After the plumbing was fixed (let's just say I'm pretty sure the plug was building up long before we moved in because there was a ridiculous amount of hair pulled out of the pipes. Gag.), we started our 'celebration'. I guess you could call it a party - at least to Riley I'm sure it felt like one - but since there was minimal preparation and guests it didn't really feel like one. I bought all the decorations (instead of making them), although I did fancy up her party hat instead of buying a special fancy one (too spendy). It didn't matter in the end because she wanted to change party hats hourly. In fact we've been wearing party hats daily since her birthday. If anyone were to look in our windows they'd think we all lost it as we wander around doing our normal daily activities in our party hats.

Grandma was a good sport and wore some of Riley's barrettes and jewelry.

I whipped up this red bean and sausage stew. It's the same one I made in my freezer meal post and was a hit with our guests... except Riley who won't eat foods like this. She loves rice and loves sausage separately, but not in this form. Oh well, cheese and tortilla make a tasty lunch too, I suppose.

Love that everyone wore party hats the entire time. Notice Riley has a different color hat in many of these picture.

Jesse will probably dislike that I posted this pictures, but I couldn't help but include it. He was trying to show his mom how to focus our camera so she could take a family picture of us. (Although, it might not have mattered because I feel like something is wrong with the focus on this camera anyway.) Anyhoo, I totally think he should update his Facebook profile picture with this one. 

Silly faces!

After lunch (which included some interesting stories about pigs blood draining and animals eating the food out of other animals crap - thanks dad!) we opened presents, then ate cake and finally handed out purple party bags with treats to our guests. As you can see grandma and grandpa are trying on their new teeth.

Giving nose kisses.

After saying goodbye to her grandparents, Riley went down for a nap. Or, she was supposed to. She was awake the entire time she was in her bedroom. I think part of it was from the excitement of the day, but Jesse decided this was the day we were getting rid of the Nuk. We have been preparing her for this, but I thought it would be after her birthday - not on. Even so, I think she was too wound up to sleep whether she had the nuk or not.

Plus, we had plans to go to the water park and who can sleep when you know that? You'll get to read more about that in part two.