Birthday Planning

LO's birthday is tomorrow and, unlike her first two birthdays, I haven't been planning the event for 3+ months. I guess that might have something to do with having two kids now... the time I had before #2 came along just doesn't exist anymore. This time around the planning went kind of like this:

Me: "LO, what kind of party do you want to have this year for your birthday? Dora? Toy Story? Yo Gabba Gabba?"
LO: (looking through the Celebrate Express catalog) "I want a Thomas party!!!"
Me: "Are you sure?"
LO: "Ya!"
Me: "Okay."

I went to my trusty friend, Vistaprint, for help with the invitations. Don't ask me why, but I'm not one to buy the "store bought" invitations with lines to fill out the "Who, What, Where" information. For one thing, I have crappy handwriting. My other thought is in the time it takes me to write out the invitations by hand, I could've created something fabulous and have them shipped to my house, requiring nothing more than addressing the envelopes. So easy! I found a stock train invitation and went all out customizing it for Thomas the Train. See for yourselves.

Like I said, I went all out. Anywho, the invites were ordered and mailed about 2 weeks before her party. I picked up the Thomas party supplies and a few decorations, ordered a Thomas cake and will have a few balloons as well. We're keeping it totally low-key this year with essentially a family-only party. I figure she'll start preschool next month so this most likely will be the last party I can get away with only inviting family. But once you add up my family, we're still looking at about 30 people! Yay!

Of course hubs and I picked up the Imaginarium train table for her as I mentioned in this post. On a side note, I just had to share this. The instructions to put the train table together? Almost rocket science. This is what hubs did last night (with a little help from me)!

How to actually put the thing together (whew!):

And putting the train tracks/buildings/etc. together once the table is assembled? This is where an engineering degree would come in handy:

But it'll be worth it all because I really think she'll be crazy-happy to have this bad boy all to herself (at least until baby Godzilla/Chase starts toppling buildings and tracks once he's mobile). I'm keeping the party itself relatively simple with finger foods (a TON of 'em!), cake, ice cream and punch. I'm really looking forward to her party and I'm learning that it isn't so bad NOT to spend months of planning for one big day. Don't get me wrong, now. Of course as soon as the dust settles from LO's party, I'll get to working on Chase's FIRST BIRTHDAY -- a mere 3 months from Monday! :)

And as you may remember, we're having Chase dedicated during our morning worship service tomorrow as well. I'm VERY excited about this! I've already told you I have a surprise up my sleeve for his dedication, which I promise to share with you all on Monday. I also bought a NEW DRESS (I heart retail therapy!) which happens to be 2 sizes smaller than I was wearing 3 months ago. (Woot!) So with the busy day I have scheduled for tomorrow, I probably won't be posting but I DO plan/hope to post some pics on Monday, assuming I'm not totally wiped out and recovering from my kids' big day!