Helena's Third Birthday... but First Birthday Party!!!

It was an early start for our little angel who turned THREE today!!! Tony had been working on something since 6am but as soon as sleepyhead Helena walked into the lounge just after 7 he dropped everything to hug her with birthday greetings. Hunter didn't stay in bed too much longer...

 we let her open her gifts from her California Grandpa and Grandma (a Dora ballerina - she loved it), Aunt Amber and Uncle Jason (lip gloss/chapstick - she always touches the ones at the pharmacy), Papa and Nanni (a cool sleeping bag and a long-stitched carousel horse - cool!) then we took her outside to see her gift from us...

 Yahoo... a bike!!! WOW... and now we're back to the sound of training wheels rickety-racketing along the driveway!!! She was so happy... in fact, she and Hunter were out there in their PJ's while I finished making her birthday porridge for breakfast! During breakfast we got to skype with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma... that was pretty special. After Tony left for work, I went into full party-planning mode and miraculously the house was transformed into party central for Helena's first real birthday party!!!

 My super friend Marg agreed to be my party assistant and the entertainment for the morning... she did a fabulous job on the girl's butterflies... they were so darn cute!!! We had a bit of a Dora influenced party with purple/pink colours and a few Dora decorations sent by Grandma and Aunt Amber... plus a bit of butterfly theme popping in... so overall, it was a bit mixed up but the house still was cute and heck, Helena was HAPPY!!!

 Aidan was the only peer boy invited who didn't have a sister attached (well, baby Liberty is still just a baby for now)... but you can't have a birthday party without a Burrows.

 Gracie and her family (that's Florence and Elice in the background) have just moved from Auckland... and you can actually see their house from our property, so it's been really fun getting to know them. She didn't know what to make of the face-painting at first but Marg's design looked oh so cute!

 The party started out with face-painting and bubbles (bear in mind - she's just three! And we're saving for my parent's holiday at the end of the year) and since Helena loves dancing and singing at Mainly Music, I decided we'd do a couple of her favourites... here we're going round the Mulberry Bush... (she always likes me to carry her in this song - funny)...

 and now we're getting ready to bounce out of our box as "Jack in the Box"...

 After a bit of singing, we had morning tea. One of the reasons I chose "morning tea" as the time for her party is that she absolutely LOVES "morning tea"! It's something we've started here in NZ... and she's into the whole snacky side of it. She'll ask for 'morning tea' at lunch time and in the afternoon time too... so I figured it was perfect for her!

 Our spread included plenty of fruit and veggies... and Super Marg's meatballs, savory muffins and club sandwiches!!! Really... AMAZING!!!

 Helena also likes picnics and eating outside, so of course we honored her by setting the kids up outside (really, it was her choice, but boy was I relieved not to have all those children eating on our already tattered carpet). There were about 20+ kids over... and praise God the weather was so beautiful... we have been praying!!! It's winter in Wellington and look at us - we're outside!!!

 Fiona and Eli gave us the thumbs up of approval... which does mean a lot because it was her daughter's Sesame Street party that I posted as absolutely inspirational!

 As part of the decorations, I made up about 11 collage cards with heaps of photos of Helena - each card had a little theme like "Helena loves Daddy" with photos of her and Tony; "Helena is adventurous" with photos of her out doing stuff... it was a fun touch and I'll just slip those into a little album as part of her present and who knows - maybe I'll remember to do a few more next year and add "highlight" cards to her album each year.

 After the kids ate, I passed out their "goodie bags" and sent them on a treasure hunt to fill them. There were only four "treasures" but they had clues and a parent stationed to divide up the spoils so everyone got something. Pretty simple, but they all seemed to enjoy running around following each other... plus they got lollipops at the end so what's not to like?

 Thankfully my friend Carla was taking photos of much of the day on my camera... which is why I'm actually in some of these shots. And thankfully she got a video of us singing Happy birthday, but unfortunately, I didn't get one of those really focused photos of the birthday girl up close and personal with her cake. Drats... oh well, good thing there's more cake and Grandad is coming up tomorrow... perhaps we'll get that photo after all!

 The main cake actually were these "butterfly" cupcakes - though our butterflies didn't look much like the picture on the Martha Stewart website (oh come on, does anyone's?) but I had to resolve myself to a few things - 1) I let my kids do the assembling of the butterfly so it wasn't going to look perfect; 2) my frosting itself never comes out right so of course it wasn't going to look as pretty; 3) what does it really matter? Most of the cupcakes were left half-eaten around the house anyway (which means either they didn't taste that good either YIKES or the kids were already full from the other goodies and those lollipops they'd just received)... I wonder if I'll remember this for next year?

 Anyway, Helena was HAPPY!!! She had friends, food, PRESENTS, balloons, attention, hugs, streamers and...

 Diego on DVD... what more could a Three Year Old Girl ask for???

And about 12:45 when everyone else was gone, Anne and I kicked back with another cuppa coffee and just let the dishes sit for a bit while I put my feet up and just soaked up the fact that my baby is now 3!!! Phew... what a day! Too bad daddy had to work... that's okay, he got the full story upon return. And again, what a day!!! Happy Birthday dear Helena...