Ryan's 3rd Birthday Party

We've been celebrating Ryan's birthday all week by being on vacation. It wasn't a big extravagant vacation but we certainly had a fabulous time...I'll post more on that soon but for this post I wanted to show off some pics from Ryan's 3rd birthday party. We had his party last Saturday the 17th since we were leaving Sunday, the day of his actual birthday. I will admit that I didn't really want a party for Ryan. I just wanted it to be a family affair this year, since I really wanted to save our "party money" for vacation. Dean was all about having a party and assured me we could still have a nice vacation. His party theme this year was Thomas the Train...of course!

the morning of his party

He has loved Thomas for almost a year now (right after his 2nd birthday). Finding Thomas decorations was a challenge and I guess it was good not having so many decorations we could buy (since those can get expensive). We saved money by only getting enough Thomas plates for the cake & ice cream and getting red & blue plates for the food. We also decided not to get an expensive cake and just went with one from the local Wal-Mart. Ryan's 1st birthday cake was actually from Wal-Mart and was actually pretty good. I won't say I will never buy another birthday cake for Ryan there again, but....I might not. It was ehhh, okay. I'm sort of a perfectionist when it comes to some things...like party decorations & cakes. I want things to be perfect in my eyes and this cake just didn't meet my standards but it was only $25 so I got over it.

My dear friend made the favors; chocolate candy trains of all sizes and put them in a small bag with Thomas the Train photo viewers. The kids bags also had a Thomas whistle. The guests arrived, we ate, chatted, opened gifts, had cake & ice cream and then all the kids (and some kids at heart) took turns hitting the train pinata. I'm glad I listened to Dean and we had a party because Ryan had such a fun time.

Disney Cars book set

more presents

cake time!

mmmm cake

pinata hitting

this balloon soon went flying

me & Ryan

if your interested more pics of the party are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mom2apreemie/RyanS3rdBirthdayParty?feat=directlink