Turning 3 !!!

Our little girl turns 3 in a few days!  I can hardly believe it.  She also celebrates her Nameday a few days after that.  This is really the first year that she is actually anticipating her special day and understands the fact that people will be coming over for a party "just for her"!  She is super-excited about it all. We have a few family birthdays over the summer. so she has had some recent reminders of what this whole thing is all about.
Her birthday package (well, one of them) arrived a few days ago from her Noni and Granddad....she couldn't wait to open it!  (she gets that from me)!  Can you guess what her favorite thing was??? She has been snapping pictures ever  since she opened it!

For the first time, I actually ordered some invitations for her (vs. the usual Walmart special). We didn't need too many and we got a great deal.  As you can see, we co-celebrate her Birthday and her Nameday.  The four of us will probably have a special night for her on the actual days of each, but as far as our common celebration for friends and family - this is how we'll do it.  This is the first time she is actually understanding it too.  It has worked out for us because the dates are so close together.  I think in our society, we often fall victim to the current culture and bring our kids up with BIG celebrations for their birthdays and a brief phone call and "Xronia Polla" on their Nameday.  I can speak for myself because that's how it was in our family growing up too.  I want it to be different for my children and I hope and pray that we are able to provide them with that - and that one day they can carry on the tradition in their own families.

I took her to the party store today - again, this is a first for her.  I decided I would let her decide what kind of theme she wanted to have and then we could get a few things.  I had already made my "mental" list of which ideas I would try to reinforce and which I would try to dissuade!  (Sooooo, I guess I wasn't REALLY letting her pick it out 100%)!!  Thankfully, at the store there were a lot of character ideas that she didn't even know...but then she saw some MONKEYS !  Well, I could go with that. As a matter of fact, it was one of the "ideas" I'd been tossing around with her earlier this week.  Then she saw Curious George, who she likes too. She loves the book about Curious George and the Birthday Party!   So we decided to go with the Monkey idea and add in a thing or two of the actual Curious George character...she is thrilled!

I'm also printing some of these coloring pages for the children who will be attending.

We'll be working on a few other ideas during the week and if we actually get to some of them, I can post them afterwards!  I don't want to get ahead of myself...I tend to actually THINK I'm going to do a lot more than I am actually capable of doing!