Gav's Birthday Bash

I am big on birthday celebrations...I guess it's because my mom always made our birthdays so special. From all of the loving care put into the homemade 3D cakes to the detail put into the party event planning...I have learned a lot from my Mom, through the years! I didn't really decide on a "theme" for Gavin's party until I decided on the enormous feat of constructing a 3D dinosaur cake, from scratch...not a molded pan. I had scoured the Internet, looking for a cool, 3D birthday cake for a boy and couldn't help myself when I saw a picture of the one we tried to replicate. And so it began...the chaos of trying to make every little detail perfectly flow in accordance with the Dinosaur Theme.

It all started with the smash cake...we first conquered the feat of Gav's small Dino smash cake during our "dry run" last week. It turned out so well, that we decided to freeze it and use it for his party. You freeze your wedding cake for an entire year, so it should be fine, right...WRONG. Poor Gav, it tasted horrible. So much so, that I took it from him and gave him a piece of the other party cake...sorry baby boy!

Next was the game room. Since the weather was so crappy, I had to clear out the ping-pong table and make the game room as cool as possible with plenty of toys for all ages since we would have babies, toddlers and kiddos present. Thankfully, my Mom found a "Go Diego" Dinosaur Blow Up Ball pit at Wal-Mart...thanks for Wally World. It was a smashing success and is still setup for Gav.

Next was the food and food table...Again, thanks to Wally World and the Internet...I moved our tree behind the table and took brown paper bags and twisted them into vines to hang from the tree for decoration. I also found some cute, small dinosaur toys for props. I also themed all of the food...(Yes, I am mildly crazy!) we found Dino Chicken Nuggets (Bronto-Bites), AGAIN...Mom molded a cheese ball into the shape of a Triceratops (Triceratops Cheese ball), we had Wings from Wing Stop (Teradactile Wings), Veloco Pasta (Pasta Salad) and T-Rex Bones (Pretzels). It was perfect! I also found some "Go Diego" gummy dinosaur treats!

The cakes were HOMEMADE, of course, and nearly perfect. Like I said, Gav's smash cake was cute, but not very edible...at least not to me. The other cake was made for all of the other party goers and tasted delicious, but took 3 1/2 hours and a small fight to construct and detail. While it was a HUGE accomplishment, I think I might scale back next year...I ALMOST bit off more than I could chew with this one!! All in all, it was PERFECT! Ooops, almost perfect....you see, it wasn't until I was uploading pictures and adding titles to them, that I realized that Dinosaurs DONT breathe fire and the picture on the Internet was more like a Dragon than a Dinosaur...My sweet, sweet husband realized this yet held his tongue for fear of hurting my feelings. OH WELL...Gavin's Dinosaur breathed fire. Ha!!!

Finally, the party favors. I was able to find some toy dinosaurs, Dino stickers, bubbles, dinosaur gummy snacks, doodle boards and Dino Shaped Sugar Cookies. Although I wanted to bake my own Dino Sugar Cookies, I ran out of time, patience and umph to construct those, so we leaned on Celebrity Bakery for those!

All in all, I am pretty proud of the way everything turned out. I put a lot of time, effort and thought into making this a special party. Even though Gavin will not remember this party, I WILL...and this was probably more for ME than for him, but I don't care...overboard is what I wanted, so overboard is what everyone GOT.

As we were cleaning up, I told Keith that I now understood why people just pay a couple of hundred dollars to throw a party at a party place...just to be able to walk away from the FUN of the party and relax...no setup...no clean up. Hehehehe.

As I close this absolutely LONG blog, I have to throw props to my HUSBAND for putting up with my craziness ALL WEEK/WEEKEND, my MOMMA for her un-ending HELP, my Grams for always being a part of the "special" moments in my life and my Sis for helping with the chaos. I couldn't have pulled this off on my own...well, maybe I could have, but I would have been admitted and/or so wiped that I would have missed the party! I LOVE YOU ALL!!