Preparations: Three Rides Around the Sun

And so...the preparations begin for the big celebration. His birthday is actually next week, but because of memorial day and the move, we're celebrating on Saturday. I'm a bit nervous about this one because it's his first kid party, but mostly because at this age, he gets it. He knows this celebration is for him. He's very excited about it and tells me so several times a day.























When I asked him a few months ago for ideas regarding decorations etc., he gave me these instructions:

• "some fishies"
• "some worms"
• "some balloons"
• "and some cake"

I think I know where his soon-to-be-three-year-old mind is going with this so I'm:

• covering the windows with blue film for an underwater effect
• hanging paper fish from the ceiling
• hanging green crepe paper like kelp
• getting lots of balloons and trying to make some look like jellyfish

And with inspiration from THIS MUST-HAVE BOOK by Elaine Cohen of Cupcake Caboose , I'm making two kinds of mini cupcakes, one topped with worms and the other topped with fish!

The favors are red beach buckets...


and inside are little octopuses that I made from dyed work gloves and vintage buttons; a bottle of bubbles; a sea shell shaped chocolate; a fishy tote bag that I made; and a copy of the mix cd that will be played during Satchel's party.

On Friday eve Satchel's grandma will arrive and we will have a lantern walk on the trail along with a birthday eve story and in the morning a trail of paper stars leading to a special pre-party breakfast - ideas adapted from The Birthday Book! This beautiful and touching book has page after page of meaningful ideas and traditions to celebrate birthdays.

Satchel chose three friends to invite. We will be playing a few parachute games and singing songs from The Birthday Book, before painting some wooden wiggly fish. Afterward we'll break out our super-duper bubble making devices.

Lastly, Satch will carry his *Hugg-a-Planet Earth around a lantern three times to represent his three years (another idea from the beautiful aforementioned Birthday Book). I'll be making paper stations on the floor to mark the seasons and make the passing of time more vivid. After Satch completes a year I'll give him a photo mosaic from that year and on the third cycle we'll all sing Happy Birthday and eat cake!

*By the way, what I love about the Hugg-a-Planet Earth is that it inspires such wonder. Every time Satch picks it up, he searches fervently for Antarctica because that's where the penguins live AND Australia because that's where the kangaroos live! We have regular globes up in the studio, but there is something wonderful about this soft and huggable, Earth! When he gets older, I imagine that we'll be making up some geography toss games. Check out the whole hugg-a-planet line here! And if you enter "Peace Please" at check out, you get a 10% discount!

I'm signing off so I can ruminate over the upcoming events. Did I mention that I accidentally sent one of the invitations out blank? YES! Now you know why I'm worried. I guess my "Inner-Martha" was sent to prison. Can I blame it on sleep deprivation?Have a good weekend, everyone! (I'll be back Thursday...We've got some post-birthday packing to do - We're moving on Friday and there maybe an internet black-out in between.)

*To our new and much loved friends (if you're reading this), these plans were made before we met your beautiful souls, but we hope that you will join us for our next celebration!