Happy 3rd Birthday to Gracie!

Sunday was Grace's 3rd birthday, and we had a wonderful day! She's been looking forward to her birthday for several weeks, and has been practicing by singing "Happy Birthday" to herself and practicing blowing out candles. :) She woke up SOOOO happy in the morning and was very excited that she got to go to Nursery at church on her birthday! She got to bring the snack, so we took grapes and vanilla wafers (grapes are one of her favorite fruits). We had been reminding her all week that on Sunday we would go to church, then she'd take a nap, and THEN she would get her birthday party and cake, but we weren't sure if she'd really go down for a nap. We had a pretty busy and late night for the 4th of July, though, so she took a really good nap after church.

While she slept, Dave and my mom and I got ready for the party, which had a tea party theme! (We chose that because she has a book about a tea party, and she loves reading it. Plus, she has lots of grandmothers [6, to be exact], and what grandma doesn't love a tea party?) We served little sandwiches, which my mom was sweet enough to make (there were TONS too!), crackers and cheese, "tea" (apple juice), and fruit salad.

look at all those sandwiches!

The first thing we did was open presents, which Gracie was VERY excited about! Since she loves the unwrapping process as much as the presents, Dave and I had gone to the dollar store and picked out about 10 little presents that we wrapped for her, plus she had presents from all the grandparents who came, so she was a busy little unwrapper. Here's a picture of all the wrapped goodies:

And the birthday girl, all ready to unwrap!

She got lots of fun presents, including toys, books, and clothes.

She got a coloring book, a regular book, 5 outfits, a play camera, a fishing pole/fish, a pretend cell phone, a Cinderella tea set, a small Belle doll to play dress-up with, Mike & Ike candy, a backpack, and a teeball set. The biggest present, and one of her favorites, was her very first tricycle! All the grandparents on Dave's side went in on it, and she was SOOOO excited! She had a little trouble pedaling at first (she wanted to push with both feet at the same time), but she's catching on quickly and getting to be pretty fast! Here are some pictures of her in action:

right after opening it

getting the hang of it (with the help of Grandpa)

I love it!

I told my mom that Gracie's pretty lucky, because not every child gets to have 8 grandparents (plus 2 parents and an uncle) cheer them on as they take their first bike ride! I think we were all as excited as she was! :)

Gracie really didn't want to have to stop playing with toys so she could blow out her birthday cake candles, but we finally persuaded her to.

Daddy had to help her blow them out because she was a little scared of the fire, but that was alright. :)

(Sorry, the picture won't go the right way.)

Afterwards she didn't want to eat any of the cake, so we just gave her some food to eat while everyone else got their food. She didn't eat any of that either, but we didn't think anything of it until she threw up all over her high chair tray! It was so sad! There were a lot of grapes in it, so I think she probably just ate too many grapes in Nursery, and all the sugar upset her tummy. While everyone else ate and visited, I gave her a quick bath, and then she was as good as new!

For the dessert, we served homemade ice cream (my mom's tutti fruity recipe) and cupcakes, and I made a teapot cupcake cake to fit the tea party theme. I was a little worried about how it would come out, but it turned out really cute. :)

the desserts

the teapot cake (made with regular and mini cupcakes)

the best part of the day--a sweet, happy 3-year-old!

And after everyone else left, of course Gracie had use her new Cinderella tea set to have a more intimate tea party with her two grandmas--what a perfect ending to a wonderful day! :)

Happy Birthday, Gracie!