I planned his train themed party very last minute. I haven't really had a 'big' party for him yet and I had originally planned to do something at some sort of venue. In December I called around to a lot of places and had every intention to book a venue for his party. But when we got home from Christmas, I had no motivation. At all. January birthdays are really hard. First, you're completely exhausted from the holidays. Second, with everything he got for Christmas, he definitely didn't need any more presents. And finally, you never know what the weather is going to be like in January. The weather really limits your options. So, I basically completely slacked on any sort of planning and just figured we wouldn't do anything. But then, the Sunday before his birthday, I felt like the worst mother in the world and knew how much he'd love to celebrate and have cake with his friends. So, I threw together an invite and decided to have a party 6 days later! Luckily, all but two of his friends were able to make it to the party.
I had a train themed (Thomas the Train) party. Prior to having kids, I vowed I would never have a character themed party...but things just change once you have kids. He loves Thomas and it only made sense to have a train party. Since the weather was rainy yesterday, for the most part we had to stay inside the house. I set up 2 train tables in my living room, added some Thomas decorations and balloons and packed the cutest favor bags with train themed goodies. Each kid got a train conductor hat, a train whistle and some candy! And of course, we had a Thomas cake. Kahn was in heaven playing with all his friends (16 of them!) and eating cake.
Although most brought him presents, most were also willing to give money that we will be donating to charity. On the invite, I asked everyone NOT TO BRING GIFTS but instead to bring $10 that we would donate to a charity. We did the same thing at his small 1st birthday party and we were able to buy a goat through Heifer International for a family in need. I plan to do the same thing with the money that was donated for his 3rd birthday! Between the birthday donations, Kahn and I's contribution and Kahn's company's match, it turns out to be a nice donation for the charity. I'm hoping one day Kahn will appreciate our decision to have all his friends donate to charity as opposed to bringing him presents. (And don't worry...he got plenty of gifts to open from us and his grandparents so the child was far from deprived on his birthday).
I am so thankful to all of our friends...for the donations, the gifts and just celebrating the special day with little Kahn.
And like every other event in our lives lately, we didn't take too many pictures. Things were just too busy. But here's a couple pictures of Kahn and his cake from yesterday.
I seriously can not believe he is 3 years old already. He has brought so much love and joy and laughter to our lives the past 3 years. We love you, little Kahn!
