Gardners Down Under: happy 3rd birthday, nova! 9th august, 2010

well, we had our first experience planning, executing and surviving nova's first real birthday party. i don't know if its the month of august or kid birthdays in general, but it turns out that, much like daycare, when planning a birthday party, one would do better to get on a waiting list at least six months in advance. that way, those busy two to five year olds have a chance to pencil the date in to their busy social/birthday party schedules. nonetheless, in classic gardner fashion, we gave everyone two days notice. (actually, we made the mistake of mentioning the party and potential guests to nova BEFORE calling or confirming any attendees, so we were doing some major finger crossing that everyone could make it.) nova was so excited that she could hardly sleep the night before...

i try to stick to lauren's advice (which i don't think she does): invite the same number of kids as the age of the of the birthday girl (or boy) - but that proves more difficult as 2nd and 3rd siblings come along... anyway, we were able to keep it to four kid guests and jessica - a kid at heart, but one that gets to drink a beer or glass of wine with the "parents". so, we had steph and kurt glaser and their kids, eddy and casey, and glenn and nikki harrington and their daughters, zara and laila.

nova being so in to the blue guitar that grandma and grandpa had given her, we decorated her cake with one. i tease jessica that because she is my friend, i am a better mother. jessica not only has more experience managing/herding kids than i do, but nova also had gourmet icing (peanut butter, cream cheese and nutella) (nothing against crisco icing, mom and lauren!) because of her (and brian).

licking the cake batter bowl...

rock on, sister! ...the inspiration for the cake...

nova opens presents like she eats food - slow and distractable. after you convince her to open one and help her tear off the paper, all of which can take five to ten minutes, she wants to play with that toy. there's no tracking to the next present, no focusing on the task at hand; instead she just focuses on the one gift that took her half an hour to open in the first place (which i guess is good, because so much effort went in to opening the present). as my mom pointed out, this is nice for the gift-giver, as nova gives due (and then some) attention to each gift. this is a dangerous game, however, when you have a room full of bait (i.e. presents) and hungry wolves circling (i.e. other children). but nova, in her sweetness, is happy to share the present opening experience... so five-year-old eddy and his savvy three-year-old sister actually ended up opening most of nova's gifts - it was the only way we were going to get through everything and still have cake and ice cream before her fourth birthday!!

finally! cake! nova, zara, laila and casey...

eddy, nova and zara...

now, nova got some awesome puzzles, games and books for her birthday, but the gift that stole the show was the "princess box set", complete with two sets of pink, plastic high-heel barbie-style slip ons and a tiara. despite multiple wipe-outs on our wood floors, donna reed persisted and was eventually found cutting wooden fruit at her kitchen, presumably for leave it to beaver and the cleaver family....