Caiden's 3rd Birthday (part 2)

We had Caiden's official birthday party at the Forest Park Miniature Railroad just outside the Fort Worth Zoo. A train-themed party was a no-brainer due to Caiden's current obsession with trains, but I didn't want it to be all Thomas. Also, I wanted to have some fun myself and make many of the decorations and extras. It didn't really go as planned, but we had a lot of fun anyway!  A couple things I learned for future parties

• It's very risky to have a party where you can't reserve space. When we got there to set up, all but one table were spoken for. Boo!
• Spring birthdays, outdoor parties and Texas weather don't mix. I had been praying for no rain. Which it didn't, thankfully! But it was crazy windy. Boo!
• Don't mess with balloons if your party is outside, especially if it's windy. They'll just get tangled. Boo!
• Make sure you have a memory card in your camera, because it does you no good if you don't. Boo! Thank you so much to Ashlee, Shiva and others who took pictures for me!

Anyway, enough of the bad stuff... on to the good stuff. I'm sure you are well aware that I like to be crafty, so birthday parties are a perfect opportunity to do just that.  And of course I used my Mighty Machine and Pinterest to help me along the way.

To start with... the invites. I loved how they turned out. (inspiration here)

You might have already seen the shirt I made him for the festivities.

 

 I made Caleb a different version of it, but he wore his jacket most of the time.

 

Here's the table setup. (remember that I only had 1 table available, after I'd planned on 3!)

 

I chose a pull-string pinata because I don't really trust 3-year-olds swinging a bat in the air :)

 

 

 

Thomas the Train temporary tattoos!

Everyone loved the train ride.

 

 

After the train ride we had cake, cupcakes, and cookies. My sweet foodie friend, Erin, helped me make the cake. We used Pinterest of course to help, but she made all the icing and fondant for me. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out! (cake inspiration here)

You can just barely see the banner I made with the Mighty Machine in the picture above.

The candles wouldn't stay lit in the wind, so we pretended.

Train engine cookies

 

 

 

 

And I used the Mighty Machine to fancy up some non-homemade cupcakes with some train wrappers.

And of course Caiden opened his presents. Caiden was so cute because after he opened each gift, he would go to each person to say thank you.

For the party favors, I used my Mighty Machine again to personalize some cups and each one had some bubbles and a Thomas & Friends pez dispenser.

So hard to get everyone to look at the camera!

Don't mind my chubby cheek. I had just taken a bite of bagel!

Special Thanks to my mom & stepdad, Eric's mom and the McCrary family for making the trip from out of town for the celebration! We were so glad you came to celebrate Caiden!

 

 



 

Whew!  I'm glad Caiden and the guests enjoyed it, but now it's on to party #1 for baby #2. Makes me want to cry!

Caleb- 11 months

 

-Weight: No clue
-Length: ??

-Diapers: size 3

-Clothes: 6-12 month clothes and 12 month clothes, but most are pretty big

- Sleeping: Sleeping has been a bit better. We had to do another short stint of "sleep training" and hopefully got our message across :) Daytime sleep- if we are home he will take a good morning nap about 45 min- 1.5 hours. If we are out and about, he will not take a morning nap (unless he snoozes in the car). In the afternoon, most days he will take a nap around 1:00, most days it's 30 min or less, but occasionally I will get an hour our of him. Nighttime sleep is wonderful. From 6:30pm- 6:30 or 7. I am not feeding him during the night anymore! Yay for good sleep for momma!

 -Eating: He's eating a TON! Three full meals and two snacks. At each meal he is eating 8+ ounces of baby food. New foods were white beans, salmon, tomato, onion, chocolate (since he snagged a bite of my cookie). He is really wanting to eat more finger foods. He's nursing 4 times a day.

New milestones:

• signs for "more/mas"
• Can stand on his own and squat to pick something up and then stand again
• is walking?? Not sure if I should really say this just yet. He will take 6-10 steps on his own and then squat down (or fall).

Other notes:

• still only has 2 teeth! poor kid, needs some chompers soon!
• loves to wave "bye" to people
• had his first swim class, and loved it! 
• Got to meet Thomas the Train in person
• He is going to be my climber. He's started climbing on everything: chairs, ottomans, stairs etc.
• I'm not sure if I've said this before, but he is very determined. When he wants to do something or go somewhere he will do whatever it takes to get there. It's hard to describe.

As he's growing:

 

 

 

Big bro vs little bro:

Caiden's first trip to the dentist

Just before his birthday, I took Caiden to his first dentist appointment.  He was so brave! She counted all his teeth ( He has all 20), cleaned and flossed, and gave a fluoride treatment. She said his teeth look great and now we go every 6 months!

The mighty machine (Silhouette Portrait): Making t-shirts

Many of you many have heard me talking about my "Mighty Machine" and have wondered what in the world is it. It is the Silhouette Portrait, an electronic cutting machine. I got it for Christmas this year after wanting it forever!  And I have definitely put it to good use already. I thought you might be interested in seeing what all this mighty machine can do so I'm going to do a series of posts showing some of my projects. I'm still in the learning curve, so they aren't perfect. But I'm having lots of fun!

One of my first t-shirt projects was Valentine shirts for the boys:

 

 

 

 

Some baby gifts: (hopefully my friends don't mind getting crafty gifts!)

 

Other gifts:

 

 

And Caiden's birthday shirt:



I've made a couple more, but haven't gifted them yet, so they will have to wait!