Alphabet Birthday Wonderland

Ben began his first day as a 3-year-old by demanding that Chris and I sing "The Alphabet Song" instead of "Happy Birthday" to him when we got him out of bed. He then went downstairs and was thrilled to discover letters and balloons hanging from the ceiling. He thought they were pretty much made of awesome and unicorn dust.


After drawing our attention to all the letter decorations, he settled down to opening some gifts. He read his name spelled out on several of the presents (he is recognizing lots of sight words these days).


When he got to this fantastic wooden spelling toy, he set aside everything to play with it for a bit. It's so rewarding when your child actually really likes a gift you've chosen for him, am I right? I never know whether something will illicit ecstasy, apathy, or horror (as was the case with some Kipper felt puppets I made him last Christmas--he now loves them).


The party commenced at 10am.


The most popular items were the alphabet elevator, a bowl of Scrabble Cheezits, and some mason jars filled with candy on the table. FYI, that's pretty much all you need to keep children (or adults!) happy for a few hours.


Ben politely shared his elevator, snacks, and toys and was excited to see some of his friends arrive, but as the crowd grew, our little introvert snuck out to the back porch to have some fun time by himself. Look, bubbles!


Before long his friends joined him. (Doesn't it look nice out there? It was. The temperature stayed quite pleasant while the party lasted--at least as far as the not-eight-months-pregnant guests were concerned.)


After some buttermilk biscuits with ham and sweet iced tea (I fell back on Southern favorites this year), we enjoyed some alphabet and number cupcakes. Ben liked them very much and chose the letter B, for obvious reasons. Below he is staring intently at the cupcakes and refusing to look at anyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him.


A great strategy for eating cupcakes is to lick off all the frosting first.


The party ended with a book exchange.


After nap time (Ben didn't actually sleep, but Mommy, who'd been up since 5am, did), Ben opened yet more presents and Skyped with relatives. We had a great day! As I told Chris that evening, "All these parenting experts suggest that plying your children with junk food and presents is a bad thing, but Ben has been in a super mood all day! I've changed my mind; the key to avoiding whining is to just give him candy and toys all day long."

Thanks to everyone for making Ben feel special on his birthday.