Ethan's 3rd Birthday Party

Even though Ethan's birthday isn't officially until tomorrow, we spent Saturday celebrating his special day with friends. He has been super excited about his birthday party because we had it at the Dekalb-Peachtree airport. He and his friends were able to play on the playground and watch the planes take off and land in between birthday festivities. We wound up with a ton of pictures, but with party set-up and everyone showing up, things were so hectic that I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the food table, the cupcake tray(which was super cute!), centerpieces, decorations, etc :-(

It was hot, but everyone seemed to have a great time. We scheduled it early before things got super hot and I realized that this was the first birthday party that Ethan has had that did not involve the spray park. I've decided that for the next few years, we'll either return to something water related or have it indoors to stay cool! We are so thankful that our friends and family drove all the way down to Chamblee just for him! We had a great turnout and everyone had at least a 45min-1 hour drive just to get there! We would never have planned a party that far away and were simply planning to take  him down to the airport on his actual birthday and  have his party on the weekend at home. Then people began to tell us that they would be happy to drive down for him. So sweet!

Birthday boy in his birthday shirt holding his loot after playing "Lost in the Clouds"

 

We filled a baby pool with 144 small airplanes then laid a layer of shredded paper with white polyfill batting fibers over it and the kids had to dig around to find the airplanes "lost in the clouds"

Then I showed everyone a picture of an airplane die cut and the kids went on a Plane Hunt to look all over the playground area to find 12 others that had been hidden

Going on a Plane Hunt

 After that, everyone received their own paper airplane that Ben had made for them in advance and we had several paper airplane races...the farthest, the highest, do a trick, etc.

On your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Ready, Aim, Fly!

Everyone then climbed to the top of the viewing area so that we could get a picture of the whole crew. All you can see of Ethan is his airplane. He was not into getting his picture taken... we definitely have hit the 3's. And I thought the 2's were bad!

 Singing Happy Birthday after eating lunch. Subway party platters for the adults and Uncrustables with pretzels and apple slices for the kids.

Here's his little airplane cake. I just put plain cupcakes around it, but looking back now I should have surrounded his cake with the cute party cupcakes. They had the most adorable fondant toppers on them that I ordered off of Etsy and they looked exactly like his cake and covered the entire top of the cupcake(the candle is blocking one of the wings on the airplane). We even had some made with his initials on them and they looked awesome arranged on the cupcake tray with the airplane toppers...that I didn't get a picture of :-(

Mimi totally rocked the birthday party! I couldn't have done it without her! She drove over from Alabama just for the party. I put a quilt down for Caden and she hung out and entertained him while Mommy and Daddy were in party mode. You can't tell from the picture but he had his own little airplane outfit as well. This was taken toward the end of the party and he was 2 hours past his morning nap but still had a half smile :-)

 After the party wrapped up, we made it home in time to get cooled off with a bath and have naps! Which gave Mommy enough time to get changed and everything unloaded and put away before he woke up ready to open presents.

Whew! What a Day!