Monkeying around for Garrett’s third birthday party

Yesterday was Garrett’s monkey themed third birthday party at Pump It Up, the local bouncy house place. WHEW, whatta party this was! I was so worried we wouldn’t have enough food or goodie bags but things actually came out just right, so yay to that.

I started the day by chasing down a box that contained a bunch of hand made party decorations from my friend Allison. I had gotten a sneak peak at these decorations over on Allison’s blog, so I was absolutely STOKED for them to arrive for the party. But, since she’s in Minnesota and I’m in Alabama the crazy blizzard of 2011 delayed it from arriving til the last minute. Thankfully it did indeed arrive at the last possible second. And another thank goodness for small town post offices so I could call them to take it off the truck and hold it for me until I got there to pick it up. When I opened her package I just nearly peed my pants from excitement at all the beautiful stuff she had made for Garrett’s party!

Warning: Super PIP-laden post ahead. If you’re not into preschooler birthday parties, giant bouncy houses o’ torture and/or chimpanzee paraphernalia feel free to skim right on over this blog entry.

So here we go– let’s start the party!

Here is the “Make-sure-we-get-a-family-photo” picture before things got started.

I’m so glad I made mom take these before hand because once everyone arrived it flew past and we didn’t get a single pic of the three of us together. Note to other parents of preschoolers- force yourselves to get a family photo at some point during the party! Here is the best we could do!

We saw The Lip a lot at this party for some reason. He would swing from incredibly excited to Debbie Downer in the blink of an eye and then back up again…. Riding this three year old roller coaster is gonna be an adventure! Overall he had a blast but there were times when I think he was just overwhelmed and that lip nearly drug the ground.

Here are all of his peeps! We were so excited that so many kids showed up to the party! There were seventeen kids all total with a few not pictured here. How fun is this?

Here they all screamed HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to him. These two guys that worked at Pump it Up were excellent at their jobs. They should win some kind of toddler wrangling award.

J wins Daddy of the Year yet again for going down the slide with Garrett a few times! No way was I going up that thing. It was HIGH and I didn’t want them to have to call the fire department when I got stuck at the top and paralyzed by fear and/or smushed a few toddlers along the way.

Let’s play “Which One Of These Is Not Like The Others?” Oh yeah… my kid. Being a drama queen in the middle of fun time. Imagine that. If you’ve been a longtime reader here this will not be surprising to you.

This bouncy house place was so dang awesome! I highly recommend finding one in your area. There are similar ones everywhere, and so totally worth it for a fun party. Three was about the smallest I would go because some of the smaller kids were struggling with the big slides and obstacle courses.

WHEEEEE….

The kids had a total of 80 minutes of going ballistic jumping time. This pic about sums it up for all the kids by the end of it all:

“And I’m spent!”

Here is my BFF Martha and her sweet baby Alicia Lenore. I need to send her to my friend Natalie’s etsy store for more awesome headband flowers!

And check it– a photo of J and me actually smiling at the camera and looking good together! Wow! This picture is like GOLD!

And this one ain’t too bad, either. Hehe. These are masks I painted for the kids but I forgot to get pictures with the kids wearing them. Eh well…

They announced it was time to go open gifts and eat pizza and cake and guess what happened? Cue The Lip:

At least some folks were happy. Here’s my niece and her friend Lauren.

Oh, wait…what’s that?? Could it be… THE LIP???

Here he is high-fiving his little buddy Connor from his class. Connor is cool.

And then more of The Lip…

And now for the decorations!! I’m so excited to show them to you because they were PERFECT!

Here is the INCREDIBLE banner Allison made for us!

Monkey cupcakes from Delicious Bakery. Yum.

The perfect cupcake toppers Allison made!

I was so excited about all of this! Oh, how I adore cute party decorations. And even moreso when I didn’t make ’em! 🙂

Here’s the party room before the gaggle of kids arrived.

It looked like a family reunion for Clyde from Every Which Way but Loose in there.

The chimp decor was bought at Oriental Trading. So, so cute.

I LOVED this “G” that Allison made for me! Totally wasn’t expecting this one at all.

Cupcakes made him happy!

But .002 seconds later cue The Lip:

Happy for Grandma!!

And then more Lip…

Here are all of his peeps chowing down on their pizza.

Then it was time to open some gifts in the big inflatable throne chair! This part was super fun.

Ok, this is a little side note for all the unskinny moms out there… I bought this new shirt just for the party but didn’t realize until I uploaded pics that I was FLASHING HUGE GIANT CLEAVAGE to all the kiddies and their parents during the gift opening. :blink I wish someone would have told me. Isn’t that what sisters and girlfriends are for? Geez… Somebody remind me to wear a turtleneck to his fourth birthday party please.

After gift opening time, we handed out all the goody bags filled with monkey sippy cups, monkey finger puppets, monkey bubbles, monkey stickers and gobs of candy and sent the kids on their way. By that point it was really close to meltdown time so the timing was perfect. It was really a great party! And the best part– I didn’t have to clean up my house for it. Woot!

Happy birthday (again!) to my sweet lil G. Love you so much, kid!