Sadie’s 3rd Birthday Shenanigans + Easter 2019

Last week was a flurry of one celebration after the next, with starting in Boston to watch my brother run the marathon on Monday and then Sadie turning three on Thursday, while also mixing in Easter activities nearly every day from Wednesday-Sunday. It was a super fun week, but let’s just say my activity tracker on my Apple Watch let me know that my standing hours and general movement was off the charts way more than usual. 😉

I went to the gym this morning (Monday), took a shower, and then actually fell back asleep for an hour, which I have never done before. I think my body was just telling me to slooooow down. I ended up sleeping until Jamie came in with coffee at 7:15 saying that he was out the door and I was officially on Mom duty. LOL. Mama was smoked!

But again, I am grateful today for the fun, memorable week we had with family and friends, and I’d love to zoom in on just Thursday (Sadie’s birthday) and Sunday (Easter) and share some special pictures.

Sadie’s 3rd Birthday

We woke Sadie up around 7:30 so that she would have enough time to do birthday things before taking Hadley to school. She was a true crabby Patty though and had no interest in her birthday doughnuts, blowing out candles, or opening presents. She just wanted to snuggle. We joked that she woke up a true three-nager.

We eventually took her out back to show her her big gift, which she showed little interest in. She just couldn’t snap with it! Hadley loved (!) it though of course. 🙂

We thought something like this inflatable water slide might be fun to own since we enjoy entertaining and being outside so much when it’s nice out. It was really affordable considering the size ($150), had good reviews, and blows up in two minutes flat. We’ve only used it once (on Easter), but so far, so good! We are all big fans.

After taking Hadley to school, my mother-in-law and I took Sadie to EarlyWorks (a children’s museum) in Huntsville. We spent a couple of hours letting her play before enjoying Mexican for lunch and then whipping back to pick up Hadley from school.

Sadie had swim lessons right after school and then came home to snooze for a little bit. Around dinnertime we met my parents and my grandmother at Chuck E. Cheese and had a big family party for Sadie. It was perfect!

I had decided a couple of months ago that a big birthday party with friends probably wasn’t in the cards because there was just so much going on mid-month with Boston, Easter, and Jamie’s annual training with the Reserve. Doing a big party would have added a wonky amount of stress when I knew Sadie would be equally happy having a family celebration at one of her favorite places.

Her grandparents + pizza + cake (that she picked out herself from the catalog at Publix! Yum.) + her own card to play unlimited arcade games = a very, very happy birthday girl. I know in the future she’ll be much more expectant of having a party with friends, but this year, this filled her tank. 🙂

She wasn’t a big fan of being the center of attention, so singing Happy Birthday to her was just a hoot. She is so unpredictable, so funny, and just so uniquely herself. Jamie and I had a ball celebrating her. It was a wonderful day, and we were very grateful to our family members for loving on her with their presence (and presents, lol) the way they did.

Our unicorn picture! Everyone is looking and smiling! Woo hoo!

Sadie and one of her best buddies! We love Grandpa!

Easter Sunday

We attended the 8:30 service on Sunday, so we were up and at ’em early, early, early!

Cute “sister” pictures in their matching Easter dresses were a big, fat fail thanks to a our sweet middle kid, which remained the theme throughout most of the day. 😉 Sometimes she hams it up for the camera, and other times she is all NO MA’AM. It’s all good. 🙂

The thing I love the most about this picture is her little hands. They still look so teeny and chubby to me, like little baby hands. Reminds me that she is still so little even though she acts way too big for her britches most of the time. She talks as well as Hadley and continually blows us away. As far as her reasoning skills though, those are down the tube at the moment. She has none. 😉

We love our church so much and really enjoyed our first Easter here. We were so glad my mother-in-law was in town this year to attend with us. As far as family pictures go though, this was not our year for an overall cute one. 🙂

We ate brunch at Cork and Crust, headed home for naps (for the grown ups too!), and then welcomed our neighbors around 3 for some outdoor fun! We had an Easter egg hunt, enjoyed the sunshine, and let the kids play on the water slide.

What a gift to have a best buddy just four houses down!

Seriously, such a gift.

Jamie had been smoking some ribs all day which we ate around 4:30ish before taking my mother-in-law to the airport.

Our final stop of Easter Sunday was our pastors’ home! We love them so much. Jamie ate more food, the kids played their hearts out with their friends, and I got in some good chat time with friends.

We collapsed that night, but agreed that it was one of our favorite Easter Sundays to date!

Let’s chat!

Have you ever felt guilt for not throwing your toddler a big birthday party? At what age did you start routinely doing “friend” parties? Hadley had a friend party for her third and fifth birthdays, and the fifth birthday party seemed to be pretty monumental for her! She really looked forward to it and had a great time.