Bennett's Spontaneous Birthday Bash

Thursday we celebrated our Bennett's big TWO birthday. Before we decided to come to Rexburg, I had considered what I would do to help this day be a special one for Bennett. I came up with a few rough ideas, including:

cute little invitations...

some amazing decorations...

a small, casual birthday party with our friends from play group...

a fabulous birthday dinner, complete with all of Bennett's favorites...

a few fun games...

a birthday cupcake cake...

and some awesome presents, including something I know Bennett would die over...

A real "big-boy" slide. Bennett has a thing for slides.

Cute, huh? But then we ended up here in Rexburg, so all of those plans sort of changed on the fly. At first I wasn't going to do anything. He wouldn't know the difference anyway. But then I decided I had to do something. You only turn two once, for crying out loud. But I still wanted to do all the cute stuff I had planned, so maybe we would just have two parties--one here and one when we got home. But no, that's ridiculous. What two-year-old needs two parties? So then I decided I would just throw him one party, right now, and make it work in a "spur-of-the-moment" type of way. And that's the decision I made the morning of Bennett's birthday.

My cute little invitations ended up being text messages sent out only hours before the party started. They went like this:

You are cordially invited to Bennett Wayne Hargrave's second birthday!

Held March 31st, 2011
at the Rexburg McDonald's play place
from 5:00-6:00pm.
Ice cream cake will be provided. Feel free to bring your own money for other food if desired. Please RSVP to Haley Hargrave no later than right now.
See you there! :)

The decorations were all purchased within a ten-minute period as I literally ran though the dollar store.

The guests list was made up of my family, two of my friends from high school and their families, and whoever else happened to be in the McDonald's play place between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00pm. It was a very exclusive party.

Bennett's birthday dinner was not a home-cooked meal, but still consisted of all of his favorites in the form of a Happy Meal. Here I am cleaning up the mess that was left behind.

Party games included playing on the "bue side" and the "ed side" (the blue slide and the red slide) and generally annoying the other McDonald's guests who were trying to enjoy their dinners.

Bennett's cake was delicious, purchased from Dairy Queen and lit with two left-over candles my mom had laying around the house.

And his presents were two very small, very inexpensive things Bennett picked out himself from the toy isle at Wal Mart. He chose them, I wrapped them, and then he got to play with them. SURPRISE!! (We will still get him the slide, but we'll have to wait until we get home.)

So that was the party. Despite the crazy spontaneity of it all I couldn't have asked for anything better. I thought the location was great, the company better, and even though Bennett didn't get the dream party I had planned, I think he had a ball. We all did.

Matt woke up at 2:00am Iraq time to be there via SKYPE as Bennett blew out his candles and opened his presents. Afterward I made the comment that he must be tired and he could go to bed now if he wanted, since all we were going to do was eat cake and play some more. But Matt said he would sleep later because he was busy "watching our boy turn two." It makes me sad that Matt couldn't be there in person, but Bennett will always know that his Daddy loves him very much and he'll be there next year.

Here's Bennett in his birthday shirt Maimie and Pop sent him from Texas. I love this shirt, and I love the boy in it even more. I cannot believe we have such a big kid!

Bennett himself absolutely LOVED turning two. Mostly he loved the cake and candle part. When we got home Bennett found two decorative candles in my mom's bathroom and spent the rest of the day walking around with them singing, "Haaa-peee brrrrr-deeee Bunnnautt!" with dramatic hand gestures to himself. Then he would "blow" out the candles and clap with great joy each time. What a good little boy we have. I feel so blessed.

Happy Birthday Bennett-Boy!