Family Dinner 4 o'clock!

The days before her party, Georgiana was telling anyone and everyone about her "Family dinner at 4 o'clock!" To say she was excited was an understatement. The menu:

Georgiana's favorite dish - Grandma Grandma's (my Grandma's) Homemade Macaroni & Cheese,

Garlic Bread,

Parisian Salad Mix (Costco) with diced apples,

Barbecued Chicken & Apple Sausages,

Chips & Salsa for a little pre-dinner warm up. 

As for the cake: Alberson's white cake with strawberry filling and whipped icing paired with Tillamok strawberry ice cream. 

Yes, we were FULL.

These first few pics are simply here because I adore them:

 I was so tired from a weekend of festivities I didn't even notice the party banner fell right by the cake, ha!

 Georgiana's first pair of Joe's!! I don't even have a pair, ha ha!

 Probably the only 3 year old to ask for a bird house for her birthday. As you can see she LOVES it. 

Did I ever blog about the "toy car pressure washer" that she asked for. She described it in great detail. When I gently told her that I didn't think it existed, she informed me, "Mom, I saw it online."

She sounded so confident about this, that for half a second I thought, oh my word, did she really!?!

I'm trying hard not to complain about the quality of the pictures, but honestly look at the cuteness potential of this next one!

 A ring for every finger, check!

Two tiaras, check!

 My brother, aka Uncle Josh and little Levi:

 Georgiana and her new baby carrier. She's been bouncing and loving on her babies full time, she likes to put this on and grab her shopping cart and wristlet and off she goes!!

 Another successful party!

Curious Georgiana Turns THREE!

Georgiana turned 3 years old on June 9th, crazy I tell you!!

She chose a Curious George themed party at one of her favorite places, "gynastics," please notice no "m" in the word :)

Pre-party, getting psyched up!!

Drum Roll please for the Smith boys...

Yes that would be Kelly starring as The Man in the Yellow Hat and Levi playing the role of Curious George!

 I HIGHLY recommend Roach Gymnastics for a party location. The service was outstanding, and they handle SO much of the party. They even unloaded our truck for us and poured juice for the kiddos. They clean up and provide some of the decor, like below:

 Roach also provided balloons, and we tied them to a new Curious George stuffed animal, who Georgiana has named Levi. You can also see the favors (which I had a lot of fun with) hanging out on the table. I am just going to vent for one moment, I really really really miss my nice camera. I am kicking myself for not getting it fixed before the party. Blurry pics galore. Okay, I'm done, back to the pics.

 My favorite decoration by far was the Man with the Yellow Hat place settings. Yellow dessert plate with a yellow cup upside down on top with electrical tape around the cup. So simple and so so cute! I also printed out a Curious George birthday coloring sheet from pbskids.com and had crayons in Curious George cups on the tables. That seemed to be a hit as well, I'll probably do that again at future parties. PBS also had confetti printables (free), which I used along with my cricket to make little straw attachments, again simple, cute and fun!

 Such sports!!

 Oh my sweet little guy.

Georgiana had two gymnastic requests, the bouncy trampoline that Levi is sitting on in the picture above and the parachute!

 Couldn't get enough of both my little Smith's!

Play time!

 So much to do!

 The foam pit.

 After an hour of playtime, it was 30 plus minutes of party time: snack, singing, cake and presents.

 I LOVE little kids in party hats, adorable.

 Cupcakes with Curious George "wedding rings" as Georgiana called them.

 My 3 year old!

 They slept really well that afternoon!!

 A sign of a successful party!

This goes without saying, but aren't the best parts of a party the person you are celebrating and the people you get to celebrate with!?! 

Answer: yes, so true.  

Still, here are some party details I would be Curious to know...

Party City and other party stores are discontinuing the Curious George party line, I am assuming a new one is going to emerge, but just a heads up to order what you can online and order it soon-ish.

Anyway, I found the invitations and favor labels on etsy. The cupcake rings were the best price on ebay and Party City still has some limited amounts of napkins etc. I found enough napkins for her family dinner, but they were pretty scarce. Oh, and I added the 3 to Georgiana's shirt using Curious George fabric from Walmart and her Curious George bow came from etsy.

 For the favors I bought little sand pails with shovels and filled them with a banana, crazy straw, bouncy ball (this was very important to Miss Georgiana Lee), Curious George fruit snacks, bubbles and some shreds for filler. Each came to a grand total of $2.75 including the label which was the 2nd most expensive item. I thought that wasn't too shabby!

 Invite Sample:

Oh, and we had a new copy of Curious George and the Birthday Surprise book that people signed as a memory book for Georgiana. About half the guests remembered to sign. Considering most everyone was wrangling one or more little ones, I would call that a success.

***

On Sunday, Georgiana walked into Levi's room as I was rocking him and she asked me "am I three years old!?!" She's asked me every morning since, "am I still three years old?" 

Oh, and completely random. Today she was asking about some of the neighbor kids who go to school and she asked me if they went to "preschool, Sunday school or Monday school??" Precious.

Pinch Me!

We've really adopted the 'work hard play hard' slogan. Kelly's been working like crazy, which leads to the playing. A month or so ago (maybe even less), we bought an 18 year old 19' camping trailer off of craigslist. We were thrilled to pieces about it. Shortly after towing it home, we discovered a leak, how in the world did we overlook it!?! We started to panic and pray, thankfully turning to prayer really helps with the panic part. Just as buyers remorse had fully set in, a local rv dealership (that we had visited many times before) came to the rescue. They offered us a ridiculous trade in (much more than we paid), an offer truly too good to pass up. We jumped on it and yesterday, Kelly very excitedly towed this brand new trailer home. We've been looking at trailers for a good two years, we are thrilled and SOOOO thankful that God orchestrated us getting it this year! Thank you Lord for this trailer, we are hoping and praying to take it on many many family (and friend) adventures.
The only question is... Where should we take this bad boy???
We would LOVE your suggestion :)

What a Week!

Fly into Las Vegas (because we are flying on miles and Phoenix was FULL). Road trip to Phoenix. It was totally worth it to see family, but it was a true road trip from... Let me just say, Levi was given a suppository the day before, yeah. 

Hang out with cousin Corbin and Uncle Scott (Kelly's uncle). Eat awesome food. Cheer like crazy for Corbin at his graduation. Slowly slowly adjust to the desert heat. Take a ton of pics (only to have camera quit working later, hence no Phoenix pics on blog post). 

Embark on road trip 2 of 3 to visit my sister and her family. Playtime. Pool time. Laugh and relax (as much as is possible with kiddos). In & Out. Purchase a point and shoot at the Walmart. Go to Oatman (that's a post on it's own, hopefully I'll get to it soon, it's worth blogging about for sure!!).  Feed some burros. Look at Uncle Ben's helicopter. Eat cookies, more pool, play, enjoy. And... get attacked by sister's 'mild natured' feline. I am afraid of cats, this trip did not help. Lovely.

Leave at the crack of dawn (we learned a lot taking 3 road trips in one week) for the 3rd and final road trip. Make fabulous time. Collective sigh. 

Disney California Adventure. Disneyland. Sleep a bit, unswaddled for little Levi. 

Airplane ride home (praise the Lord for a short flight and easy drive home from the airport).

Phew. It was a doozy of a trip. We asked a lot of our little ones, they were champs, tired whiny and tearful at times, but grinning and giggling at others, overall I will say again that it was worth the driving and packing up every few days, but I think in the future I'd much prefer one little trip at a time. 

It's good to be home.

I'm going to let the pics do the rest of the talking. 

I am going to try and catch up on some sleep. I just remembered Georgiana spilled a bag of granola on my bed this morning, I better muster the energy to change the sheets. 

Sweet Dreams :)