Zuzu's Third Birthday

Zuzu's third birthday celebration was kind of spread out over a week. It started on Saturday while we were visiting David's grandma at the lake. She had make a little birthday cake for Zuzu. It had "Fred Bird" (Big Bird) on it. It was chocolate with peanutbutter icing. (Zuzu didn't eat it; David and I loved it.)

On Sunday, she had her little bestie from school over to play. The girls had such a good time together, and while I had actually felt a little guilty for not organizing a party, I honestly think Zuzu had more fun just getting to hang out with one friend. 

I made strawberry shortcake for dessert, so we went ahead and stuck three candles on it and sang to her and she and her friend blew out the candles (and then Zuzu ate just the strawberries and the adults ate the cake with ice cream).

Monday was her actual birthday, and she wanted to go to school and take treats to her friends. She took mandarin oranges and her most favorite treat ever: gummy fruit snacks. We decorated the packages of mandarin oranges with Minnie Mouse and Frozen stickers to make them more festive.

When she got home from school, she opened presents from us and that some family had sent her. I'd decorated our house with some Frozen paper decorations to make it festive, plus the birthday banners.

The big gift was a Frozen big girl bike, and she was very excited about it. We also gave her a book (we'd checked it out from the library and she loved it so much I decided she needed to have it), a set of no-mess color-with-water books (which were a HUGE hit), a fishing game, and an Anna from Frozen dress up dress. (I honestly think we went kind of overboard at Christmas, so I reined myself in on birthday gifts.)

We asked her if she wanted her birthday dinner at home, a restaurant, or a picnic. She chose a picnic, so we went to Tower Grove park to hear the concert there. It ended up raining, so we just picnicked on a table under a pavilion. When the rain started coming down really hard, the reenactors who were there for part of the concert joined us.

Zuzu entertained them by singing and twirling, and then they joined us singing Happy Birthday to her. This time, I landed on a dessert she actually wanted to eat: three donut holes.

It was a quirky, simple, perfect birthday for our big three-year-old girl. We love her so much it's crazy.