Alex's Olympic Party

I have known that I wanted to do an Olympic themed party for Alex for a few months. But then with the move, saying goodbye to old friends, unpacking, and making new friends, the party didn't really get planned. My mom was coming to visit so I decided to plan the party for while she was here. That meant I had four days to get it all together. However, because our belongings arrived the same day as my mom, unpacking was the priority. Most of the party was a "day of" kind of thing. Yikes. I ended up very pleased with how it went and Alex had tons of fun so that is a gold medal in my mind.

It started out with a torch run. Sam played the Olympic Theme Song for the torch bearers while they walked around with no destination or purpose. They really had no idea what they were doing. Alex kept smelling his torch because he thought it looked like a bouquet. I admit, it kind of does. Edison had faceplanted at playgroup earlier in the day and gotten his very first bloody nose.

I planned a lot of events but had absolutely no hopes of any of them going like the actual sports are played. Alex is three years old and his friends are less than half his age. I was surprised how much all of the athletes tried to play the games though!

The stores around here do not have pool rings. So I made my own that turned out not being very ring-like. They worked though.

Rhythmic gymnastics ended up being the Olympians' favorite event. My boys played with those "ribbons" for days!

We had no shortage of moving boxes, so we made up our own Olympic event.

After the games, we all headed inside for our Olympic feast. While we were eating, Sam asked Alex to tell us his favorite part. Alex said, "I like winning." What?! But then we decided he must have been saying, "I like running." Maybe.

After the yummy food, we let Alex open his presents. When his friends had arrived, he started ripping into the gifts they brought. We took them away and made him wait so he was very anxious to finally have permission to open them.

The athletes needed to carbo load again so it was time for cake. I was amazed that Alex was able to blow out all three candles. He seemed to be out of breath and then he just held on and got the last candle out. Too bad he doesn't know about making wishes, because it would have come true!

All of the Olympians got a gold medal and a water bottle to stay hydrated.

Thank you so much to my mom for putting up with my ridiculous demands while she helped me decorate and make the food. I was a little on the psychotic side of things that day. We don't have a color printer and I am pretty sure she thought I had lost my marbles as I colored in all of the Olympic rings by hand.

Thanks to Alyssa, Madisyn, Alexa, and Edison for coming to play! Although Edison didn't really have a choice.

On his actual birthday, Alex got to open a gift from his Merkley grandparents. It had arrived the day before but we told him he had to wait. On the morning of his birthday, he woke up and yelled, "I want to open my present!"

We had friends over for lunch on his birthday.

Birthday ice cream with candles?! Woohoo!

And more gifts another day! Thanks, Aunt Emily!