Adeline's 3rd Birthday Party

Here is Adeline's bday invitation that my sister-in-law Jenny made. She did a brillant job! I wrote "Join us in the trees as Adeline turns 3!" for the invite. The plan was to have the party in the Botanical Gardens. Rains prevented that and so 30 people came over here to celebrate at the last minute! I just told myslef to be okay with the craziness and we made it through just fine.

The ladybug cupcakes I made. I used a regular size muffin and a mini-muffin to make each ladybug. I put black icing in a ziplock and cut a small hole in the corner to squeeze out the lines and dots. After I made the icing....

I attempted to organize a game with the spoons and eggs that my Aunt Jana bought aa present for Adeline. Didn't go so well since there were kids under the age of 2 playing. Oh well, we just ate icecream instead!

Notice Adeline in the above picture in the cute tutu...unfortunately she had an accident with all of the excitement, but Mama had made just as cute of an outift which she has on in the picture below. Here we are singing Happy Bday to the pouty 3yr old. She fell asleep in the car on the way to the Botanical Gardens and woke up on the return trip. I'm sure many of you can testify how they aren't always the most cheerful when they get up.

Darton had no trouble blowing out Sister's candles though!Opening presentsParty favors for the girls were hair bows/clips and the boys got dart guns. I've been reading a lot on boosting the immune system and decided to stay away from candy and soda for this party. Hence, party favors weren't candy and the drinks were freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberry juice that you can buy in the supermarkets here. The family from church that both of my kids run to. Angel, the dad, is the ONLY person in the church that Darton will let hold him. Darton waves "bye" to me once Angel holds him. Gryseli, the mom, is Adeline's Sunday School teacher.

After the kids party we headed to an adult 40th bday party. We dropped both of the kids off at Denny and Cynthia's to stay the night. It's quite the empty filling in the pit of your stomach when you are returning to an empty house. Darton woke up in the middle of the night and refused to go to sleep for 1 1/2hrs! Denny said the only thing that made him not cry was to walk around the house with a flashlight. They were overly gracious to take both of the kids for the whole night! They said that it is very popular in the DR to call up friends and ask if your kids can stay the night. Wow! I'm not overly anxious to repeat it again though.

The 40th bday party....wow! There were 6 Barrick couples. One of the couples hosted a 4 course meal that was exquisite! It was so good that my husband is still talking about it today! Julie, the bday girl, said that at the previous mine they were at dinner parties were popular b/c you were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a mining compound were you worked, played, did everything with the same group of people. Since you didn't have a restaurant to go to, you created one on your own.