Well the day finally came! Eli's 3rd birthday party! I think I enjoyed it more than anyone! (I guess that's what it's like to be a mom, huh?) I planned pretty extensively for this and made some really cool decorations/food, so seeing it all together and being enjoyed by the kids and adults at the party was SO rewarding for me! And, of course, seeing all these little kiddos playing together and so many huge smiles was just awesome. I will (and I know the kids will) miss all these people so much when we move! All the kids were so well-behaved and I really enjoyed meeting the parents--what wonderful people! So anyway, enough rambling about MY feelings about the party! Let's talk about the actual party! Obviously there are lots of pictures, and I can't post them all here, but I'll post the best.
For food and decorations, I think the most impressive to they eye were the Jello Oceans and the Melon Pirate Ship. The Jello Oceans were made by making blue Jello (with slightly more water than called for), putting it in clear cups, and after about 1 hour of refrigerating, pushing in the gummy fish/sharks to where you want them and they'll stay! The Melon Pirate ship was obviously just carving and slicing and putting together! (I got tons of these ideas from others on the internet, so they get some credit!!) I think the most popular eating-wise was the peanut butter cannonballs. They ran out FAST! I was told that they tasted like Reese's Pieces. They were made by mixing 1 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, and some Cocoa Krispies. Then, I rolled them in more Cocoa Krispies and refrigerated them. YUM! Other things I put out were Goldfish crackers, Shark fruit snacks, Deviled egg "boats" (put pirate flags in them), Gummy fish/sharks, and "fruit cannonballs" (melon balls from the watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew I used for the pirate ship and some grapes.) Of course the cupcakes are always popular, too! :) When the guests sang "Happy Birthday," Eli was hugely happy--he had the biggest smile on his face I've ever seen and he was giggling the whole time!
I'm constantly amazed at how much technology is growing. Mom and Dad have told me that when I was 4 or 5 I was amazingly good at a couple computer games--I could even beat their friends! But of course these games were on a very large, slow, old computer. As I grew up, computers got smaller and more complex, but still they were nothing compared to what they are today! I can't even believe we survived without the internet when I was growing up--without whitepages.com, Wikipedia, Google, Mapquest, etc.! And now there are these cool iPads (and iPods) where you can just touch a small screen and everything happens immediately! And you can do anything you want! Play games, look up information, learn... and even kids as young as Eli can completely navigate their way around on it! My good friend Beth came to visit last weekend and had some cool games on her iPad that the kids had a ball playing! I got some new apps for them over the weekend too and now I hardly get my iPad back! Learning to share is always part of it. Sometimes they play it together nicely, but usually things work out better when it's one at a time. :) I wonder what technology will be like when Hannah and Eli have kids!
