Started the tradition of drawing the boys a Happy Birthday thematic chalkboard
Caleb will be 5 in a couple of months. As I look through these pictures, my heart aches only the way a mother’s can. How did I not know this was a thing until I was a mom- the pain of wanting to hold on and let go at the same time?
We hadn’t watched much tv during his first year of life aside from Praise Baby DVDs( Praises & Smiles_)- if you don’t know about them, they are amazing. Shout out to Bryan’s sweet cousin for telling me about them! Need a moment of peace to unload the dishwasher? They are full of sweet images and beautiful praise music. But, I digress- when baby #2 entered on to the scene and was even harder to get to sleep than his big bro was, I confess we watched finding Nemo more times than I can count. And you know what, Mama, it is okay. It is a season. We can all strive to be mindful, and disciplined and intentionally live our lives, but I also think it’s good to let go a little, and show ourselves some grace. We are not God. We are not perfect and we cannot do all the things (Gospel Hope for the Good Mom: Freedom from the Shoulds of Motherhood). We just did tv detox later, lol.
Nemo was one of Caleb’s first words, so we knew he would LOVE a Nemo Themed birthday party. It’s still one of my favorite movies the boys like to watch, and I love the story of a Father’s love to search for his son (sound like anything to anyone?- love Gospel themes!)
I bought (gasp!)- ha, just kidding…for a mom who usually is a DIY-er when it comes to decorations it was hard for me to just buy this banner,but it was cute and on point and honestly cheaper than if I would’ve made it. We got it from Party City. You can also find one on amazon for about 6 bucks.Jumbo Add-An-Age Letter Banner | Disney /Pixar Finding Dory Collection | Birthday
my go-to decor item for all birthdays: tassel garland. I make them out of either tissue paper or table cloths. I have a how to video at the end of this post: D’s Daniel Tiger BirthdayGoodie Bags! I saw these somewhere in my web search and had to do them! They ended up costing a little more than I wanted, but I loved them. We got the bags at Hobby Lobby. I hand drew the mouths and cut the eyes and fins out of paper.
Food:
Octodogs – you just use a knife to slice one end into several legs, boil them and the little legs curl up.
Seaweed– Grapes on skewers
Starfish PB and J sandwiches
Puffy Cheetos– Coral
Sea Shell Pasta Salad- shell pasta, cucumber, tomatoes, black olives, some seasoning and Italian dressing
This was my first time ever experimenting with fondant. I made Caleb 2 cakes and it took me FOREVER and I vowed to never make two cakes again, lol. I made one for his actual birthday and one for his party day.
I made some cup cakes as well since they are easier for kiddos to grab
I only found one picture of him opening gifts from this year, but we have a whole list compiled from the last almost 5 years of having 3 boys 3 and under:
