RP is officially THREE!

I can't believe that RP's birthday has already come and gone, but sadly, it has. I have to say that despite how stressed out I got myself over her birthday festivities, it all turned out to be a pretty great time! RP LOVED celebrating her birthday, and spent the entire week prepping by singing "Happy Birthday to me!" over and over and over...

The birthday festivities started on Friday morning with RP getting not her normal oatmeal for breakfast, but one of Mommy's pop-tarts. While this may not seem like a big deal, to her it was HUGE, as she has only ever had a bite or two of the pastries and she loves them! After breakfast we took showers, then got ready to head to "Jump Zone" with Miss K and D. RP still takes a while to warm up to people, so when Miss K and D came in the house, she snuggled into my shoulder and would barely look at them, even after we all got in the van and arrived at our destination. Inside, it took RP all of about 2 minutes to warm up to D when he climbed in one of the jumpies with her, and he was her best bud for the rest of the day! Since D is 13, I really didn't want him to feel like he was babysitting RP while his mom and I hung out, but I think everyone had a great time - even Miss K and I got in on the action and climbed up the ginormous slide a few times (and yes, I'll admit it - it was FUN!).

After Jump Zone, Miss K, D, RP, and I headed out for lunch, which was an adventure since RP was overly tired (she was up at 6:45 a.m. and spent a little over two hours at Jump Zone running around like a crazy person!) and by this point pretty grouchy. After lunch she zonked out in the car before we were even 5 minutes from the restaurant, and she took a great nap that afternoon! After nap time, Nana and Papa came over to open presents, and RP was an old pro! Unlike Christmas when she had to personally deliver each scrap of wrapping paper to the garbage bag, RP was like a tornado ripping through the packages and there was literally a sea of wrapping paper all over the floor. She had a BALL and got lots of great presents, all of which she wanted to play with immediately. We then went for pizza, and came home for ice cream cake, and the first of two opportunities for us to sing to her and have her blow out the candles.

Saturday was the party, and RP and I had to run errands that morning, which made for a long day. Even though we managed to condense our running around to one store, it took longer than I expected because the little motorized ATV that I got her didn't work right (the steering didn't work - go figure!) so we had to go through the return process before we could get our last minute items for the party. After the store we ran home to finish decorating, and I completely underestimated how long it would take to blow up all the balloons. I went through two tanks of helium which were supposed to fill 80 balloons, but those must have been pretty small balloons because even with the fairly sizable mylar balloons I bought this year, we didn't have anywhere near the equivalent of 80 balloons in the house, and I ran out of helium with two balloons to go.

RP refused to take a nap for her party, and I learned the hard way that this was a BAD MOVE on my part. She was excited and actually giddy for the party to start, even sitting nicely and posing for pictures in her Minnie Mouse get-up, but she was out of pocket when everyone arrived. As I said earlier, RP takes a while to warm up to new people, and it seems as if everyone showed up to the party within 20 minutes of one another, so she freaked out in a big way, and coupled with no nap, it was a recipe for disaster. Still, we got through it, and with only a few "bumps" in the afternoon, the party seemed to have been a success - RP loved playing with all the kids and getting to hear "Happy Birthday" sung to her again (and let's not forget blowing out those candles!) and I loved catching up with family and close friends!

The house is still in a state of post-party semi-disaster, and with the Easter Bunny coming this Sunday, I'd better get my butt in gear getting everything put away and cleaned up. As much fun as everything turned out to be, I'm glad this happens only once a year - I'm still exhausted from last week!!!