Lando's Birthday Party

mood: happy
music: baby monitor

Okay, I'm a bit behind in posting here. In part, that's because I wanted to include a few photos from Lando's birthday party, which meant waiting until I got them posted on Flickr! Well, that's finally happened, so let's jump back in time and cover Lando's party!

Lando's birthday party was on Sunday, December 9, at 12:00 PM. But there was a bit of confusion about the date and time!

First, when Bill RSVP'd by phone, he ended his message by saying something like, "So we'll see you on the 8th." Wait. The 8th? No, the party is on the 9th! We figured Bill probably just misspoke, but knew that we should call him back and confirm. Except that we forgot to do so. Luckily, they didn't show up a day early.

Instead, Eric & Patty showed up a day early.

On Saturday the 8th, we were busily cleaning the house, getting ready for the party, when there's a knock at the door. I open the door, and there's Patty, all dressed up in SCA/renfair garb as requested. "Did we get the day wrong?", she asked. Uh... yes. Oops! I felt bad having to tell her "Come back tomorrow", but I didn't figure they'd enjoy watching us clean house.

Anyway, while we were cleaning house, we were also watching the weather reports. We'd already had about an inch of snow a couple of days earlier, but now we were getting freezing rain, ice, sleet. Ugh! Were we going to have to cancel because of the weather? We had already explained to Lando that tomorrow was going to be his birthday party, that there'd be people there, and presents, and we'd all sing "Happy Birthday" and he'd blow out the candles. We even practiced the blowing out of the candles! The good news was that Lando was prepared. The bad news was that he was a little nervous. And if, after all of that buildup, we had to delay the party....

The next day, Sunday, was slightly warmer, and there was a light rain. This had the effect of starting to melt the ice that had accumulated. We decided we would go ahead with the party, but would push the start time back from 11:00 to 12:00, to give the ice a bit more time to melt. (Plus, I had to go out in the ice and pick up the cake!) So we called everyone who had RSVP'd and told them that we'd be starting an hour later. Jamie & Gina weren't home, so we just left a message for them.

Guess who showed up at 11:00? Oops. Oh well. We were pretty much ready by then and they kept Lando entertained while we did some last minute preparations.

In addition to Jamie & Gina (who were in garb), Eric, Patty, Sarah, & Rose also came in garb. Dawn, Lando, & I were also in garb, of course, so that made 9 of us, which made for a nice Medieval flavor.

And here we are!:

Bill, Mary, & Dain were also there, as were David, Sharri, Andrew, & Matthew, but they weren't wearing weird clothes, so I didn't take a picture of them. :-)

Lando got lots of great presents: a castle, some knights, a castle book, a dragon, swords, a shield, some horses, books about knights & dragons -- are you seeing a pattern here?

He did get a few presents that broke the mold, specifically a Paz laptop, a Paz guitar, a butterfly-blowing elephant head (don't ask), and a Winnie the Pooh puzzle.

Then there was our present -- bagpipes:

I love the expressions of surprise bordering on disbelief -- "You got him a what?" Luckily he doesn't yet have the lung capacity to inflate the bag, so he can't really play it yet. I'm sure that will change soon.

Finally, it was the big moment -- blowing out the birthday cake!

He gave it a pretty good try, but Dawn ended up helping him out, because the candles were just a little too far away.

All in all, it was a very good birthday party! No meltdowns, no blood, and nothing got broken! Plus Lando is now 3, so he can officially play with all of those nifty toys marked "3+" on the packaging.

As usual, more photos are available on my Flickr page. (Ask if you can't get to them.)

Of course, after his birthday was done with, he wanted to know when he could open all of those Christmas presents that are under the tree. We've told him, "Not until Christmas", so now he asks whether it's Christmas yet every day, sometimes multiple times!

Next time: Wally & Dawn go on a date!