Keeping up with the Evanses: Jonah's 3rd Birthday!

For Jonah's third birthday, I tried to reduce the amount of work I was doing and let it be more about him and what he wanted to do or eat (now that he is a fully opinionated pre-schooler). Originally he wanted Little Einsteins as a theme, but that proved to be much too hard (for me). Back-up plan: Mickey Mouse. Way easier.

His other request was to have a bounce house! Yep, he wanted to schedule jumping around outside at the beginning of December. I knew it was a risk, but we took it anyways.

The kids really enjoyed it, the adults mostly froze. Naturally, it's 60-70 degrees the weekend before Christmas, but 2 weeks before that, we hit a cold spell and it was barely 45 degrees out at the time of his party. I am thankful, though, that the rain held off until a few hours after his party.

Sorry I didn't get many shots of the kids actually playing in the bounce house. My fingers only snapped so many pictures out in the cold!

As far as food, we covered the basic loves of Jonah: chicken nuggets, hot diggity dogs, fruit, strawberries, fruit, and cupcakes. Of course we balanced it out with a few adult snacks including spanakopita, buffalo chicken dip and sandwich pinwheels. Juice boxes for the kiddos and punch, tea and water for the adults.

Decorations were simple Mickey ears for most everything including a banner, straws, utensils (handy helpers), and the wreath (that has made appearances at 2 previous birthday parties). Goody bags adorned with Mickey silhouettes, names, initial and included a Mickey puzzle and Mickey Mouse animal crackers. Each child got to take a balloon home with them as well (Thanks, Mimi)!

No big cake for his party, just a simple cupcake with candles. He was perfectly happy with it. :)

We did have a small surprise for Jonah at his party. One of his sweet friends from school (about 6 weeks younger than him) just recently changed schools to one closer to home. Jonah and Sophia (as previously mentioned in a post a "my Sophia") were reunited at his party and were almost inseparable throughout the shindig. There is no doubt, there is a sweet friendship there!

And then there was the party animal himself...

Oh wait, I mean the crazy younger brother who partied like it was his birthday!

We tend to go a little overboard with birthdays so Jonah celebrated for several days around his birthday including his party the day before, on his birthday, at school the next day and at La Bamba for trivia on Tuesday. Needless to say, I think my kid requires no sweets for a long, long time (which is impossible through the holidays).

We decided to get Jonah a big boy gift for this birthday: a bicycle with training wheels! He was pretty excited at first, then got frustrated and we backed off for a couple weeks. We also stopped because the helmet we bought him (advertised for ages 3-4) was too small (and basically too small for Nolan's head, too-- our kids seriously have big noggins). We'll fix the helmet thing and hopefully when the weather is nice, we'll get to practicing outdoors, too. :)