For Edmund's third birthday, I decided to plan a small party with a few of his friends. That is the hard part about not having family near by. The grandma and grandpas to come over easily. It feels like a much bigger deal to plan a party if they are coming. It also means there is no rescheduling. Luckily, we have fantastic friends in Columbus that always willing to come celebrate with us.
As I began planning, I racked my brain for what I could do as a theme. I remembered that while Eric was looking over our city's website for information on something, he noticed in the FAQ section that the Fire Department would come to your birthday party. The best part was that it was free. Now, before I got my hopes up, I called to see if they were available on our proposed day and time. After a few phone tag calls back and forth, they said that they were available unless there was an emergency. We were set, a fire truck theme it would be.
Now, I started looking around on Pinterest to get ideas and realized that it was making me SUPER OVERWHELMED. Some people are crazy. I love doing small cute things to make the day seem special, but most of what I saw was over the top. I decided to just make it up myself. It wasn't too hard, and I had decorations from past years that I could reuse on purpose, greatly decreasing the amount of time spent.
The Decorations
Picture Banner:
I think this might be close to the last year that I put out the ones from the year prior, but there is a picture for each month since he was born. The top one is from this past year.
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| picture banner |
Fire Truck Party Favors:
Little fire trucks for everyone to take home with them made out of cut out craft paper.
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| fire truck party favors |
They are actually boxes of chalk.
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| chalk |
Name Banner:
Mom sewed Edmund a new name banner. His previous one was made out of paper.
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| name banner |
Birthday Sign:
The birthday sign that we put up for all of his birthdays.
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| birthday sign |
Fire Truck Door Decoration:
A fire truck to welcome everyone as they come over.
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| door decoration |
Fire Truck Craft:
Pieces of craft paper cut out for the kids to make their own fire truck. This was in case it rained to give them a little something to do.
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| craft |
We also hung up some balloons because Edmund loves balloons.
The Food
We kept the food low key with appetizers, which made life easy. We had:
- strawberries
- carrots, radishes and celery with homemade vegetable dip
- pretzel sticks
- licorice
- cheese (chevre and cheddar) and crackers
- and of course cake!
I made the America's Test Kitchen version of the carrot cake, which is my new favorite.
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| carrot cake |
Edmund loved it, although he did request sprinkles on his piece.
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| birthday cake |
His friends had no problem eating theirs up as well.
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| leah |
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| zachary |
The Party
Edmund loved having a few of his friends come over to celebrate his birthday with him. They played outside with Edmund's fire truck, bubble mower, and t-ball set.
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| playing with toys |
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| zachary |
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| leah |
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| fire captain n |
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| fun spraying the hose |
The best part was the local fire department did make a surprise visit. The kids got to climb in the fire truck and talk to the firemen. Edmund was thrilled and a little overwhelmed. We hadn't told him that we were even throwing him a party until the guests arrived, so it was quite the surprise.
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| the fire truck |
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| birthday boy in the fire truck |
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| this is cool |
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| having so much fun |
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| checking out their tools |
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| junior fireman |
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| another junior fireman |
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| baby fireman |
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| the three musketeers |
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| please take the hose out |
After thanking the fire department for graciously hanging out with us, we enjoyed eating cake, playing some more, and doing our fire truck craft. Edmund's favorite neighbor girls made a visit, to which Edmund was excited about. The rain held off until the end of the party, when it started to storm out.
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| need to get inside before the rain comes |
It was a wonderful party for our little bear. We wish our families could have been here to enjoy it with us as well. Looking forward to another year with our growing boy.
Happy 3rd birthday Edmund!
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| little bear and mama bear |
<3 mom
