My baby is three years old...

It is hard to believe that my daughter is three years old. This means she is no longer a baby, no longer a toddler. It means I have serious baby fever. My husband is completely unsympathetic, he has no one to blame but himself should I get more baby animals to appease the longing.

But I digress, the fact is I now have two children that are preschool age. Gulp.

I have been wanting to downscale birthday parties but have struggled to find a way to do this.  While the children are young they have enjoyed playing with lots of other children but haven't really had special friends, no "best" friends yet, that makes it difficult to cull the guest list. This year I wanted to invite all the children from the playgroup but keep the party low key so we decided on a park party.  I provided a simple lunch of pbj's, egg salad sandwiches, fruit and cupcakes and the kids got to play at the park. The weather was damp, it was chilly and misty during the party then right after everyone left the sun came out for a beautiful day.  Figures. But my daughter enjoyed the day so I call that a successful party.

Ainsley at her "park party"

The next day we had another little party for the family.  She requested a pink cake, so I made a pink cake and let her decorate it. 

She had so much fun decorating the cake and it was a good lesson to me.  I tend to make things more complicated than they should be.  My idea of a good birthday party would be to pick a theme, have lots of decorations, make a fancy cake, etc., etc.  Yet, I don't think I could have made her a cake that she would have enjoyed more than this one.  Even though my brain was screaming at me to "fix" the decorations and space them evenly around the cake I kept my twitchy hands to myself.

This was her birthday after all and it certainly appears that she was enjoying herself!

Happy birthday to my sweet girl, you bring smiles to our hearts and laughter to our home!

'til next time...