Oliver turns 3!

I always love doing birthday parties for Oliver (well I've only done 3 now), but it's always fun trying to figure out what colors, decorations, theme, type of cake, and party favors to pick, all within a budget, and trying to make it fun for Oliver. This year it was extra fun since I could actually talk to him about stuff for his party this year, and he was no only very VERY excited, but he also had a few ideas himself!

This year I chose "music" as the theme since Oliver's been all about Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" aka "Big Dance" for nearly a year now.  I'm assuming anyone still reading this post knows him and knows how much he requests it, plays it, sings it, dances it, corrects people on the correct lyrics, even the correct pronunciation of said lyrics... So, I didn't want a cheesy Elvis party, or even a '50's party, just a music party that was more rock and roll than anything else. So, because Oliver is all about his guitar, and Daddy's guitar, and his bat that came with his T-ball kit is now his "bat guitar," I was going to make a guitar shaped cake using 2 bundt cakes, cut so they were in the shape of a "3" and also the shape of a guitar. Well, upon asking Oliver what color guitar cake he wanted he, a little astounded and appalled, said, "I don't want a guitar cake, I want a red, chocolate saxophone cake!" Ok! Change of plans...I went out and bought chocolate cake mix, icing, and all different kinds of red icing to figure out how to do this. I was scared. Then I went to one of his friend's birthday parties, and they had a really cute "Hungry Caterpillar" cake. She gave me the business card of the woman who made it, and I called her up (for $45 she makes BEAUTIFUL cakes!) I gave her the details, she sent me some ideas, I showed them to Oliver...who for at least 3 weeks had been talking about a red saxophone cake...and upon looking at the pictures, he wanted the saxophone YELLOW. Ack! We chose a cake (and proving he is definitely his mother's son, he chose the most expensive one for $80...I chose a similar one for the $45 pricetag). A week later he was still insistent on yellow, so I called her up a few days before the party, and she made it yellow. phew!

Here is the spread for the party:

Notice the blue tablecloth...the day I went to go buy decorations, my son informed me his favorite color was no longer red, it was blue. Another disaster averted! Good grief! And notice the piano? It's edible :) I searched the internet for music-themed food and came up with LAME-O stuff, or way too complicated stuff. I seriously wracked my brains for DAYS and came up with the brilliant idea of a piano made out of white kit kats and dark chocolate. I knew I was absolutely amazing! I did a Google search to make sure I was seriously the most awesomest, coolest, brilliantest person I knew, and well, there it was x6. Patooey. I'm still cool though, dangit!! So kit kat piano, watermelon balls on toothpicks (sort of like a drumstick) and bell-shaped PB&J sandwiches, and note-shaped and star-shaped ham & cheese sandwiches (star for rock star?) And of course deviled eggs because I love them but they're a pain to make (thank you Aunt Amy for making them, and the were DElicous!!)

I didn't take pictures of everything else, but there were blow-up guitars, blow-up saxophones, drums, play guitars, a keyboard, kazoo trumpets, kazoo saxes, xylophones, balloons everywhere, CD's hanging from the ceiling, records on the walls, and all kinds of things, but the best coolest toy there was a giant piano you jump on to play that Omama got Oliver for a pre-birthday party gift! Wow, kids were on that thing the whole time! Now he likes to stand on it while playing our regular keyboard :)

 My happy boy!

Cake time!

Wonder what the wish was

It was cute how a bunch of the kids lined up under the bar to eat their cake

Even Ian enjoyed his piece!

We played a musical game that I came up with...a lame game, but well, I'm lame. So, I had a giant staff on the wall and a bunch of notes. I went into "teacher mode" here and was explaining what a staff and notes were, and how to put the two together.

And they did a beautiful job!

And here is there masterpiece!

For some reason, Blogger doesn't let me upload videos anymore - the last several I've tried disappear. It's really really annoying because I have video of Omama playing this on the keyboard. It sounds kind of cool!

We waited 'til after the party to open gifts because the little kids tend to find it boring...but here's Oliver on his "sliders" with a bunch of his presents all over the floor :)

And Nich enjoyed the gifts too :)

Cooper, kind of like Oliver's big brother, stayed for a while after

And some Omama-Oliver time checking out the hiding place the balloons managed to find!

Happy birthday to my special, perfect, miracle baby! We love you!!