3rd Birthday Party Part 3: The Decorations

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to go over the top on stuff like this and this year, my dear husband joined me not just in getting the job done but in dreaming about what we could do. I blame him for a good bit of the insanity that took place in our home leading up to the party. I think really the best thing to do is just show you some of the pictures I took before the party started.

We wallpapered the entire living/dining area in mylar blankets and I made a silver curtain for our sliding glass door. Originally we were going to have a moon room out on our patio but the wind storm we've had for the past 2 weeks destroyed that dream.

(I think our heating bill dropped for a couple of weeks, it seemed really well insulated)

I used my Silhouette paper cutter to make a cool Happy Birthday sign for O (yes, I edited out his name on the bottom row).

I stuck a moon, a shuttle and some star stickers inside our lamp (and we're not removing them, they look really cool in person).

But the real insanity was in the things we built using the cardboard from the packaging around an entertainment center a friend recently purchased. It started out as a simple plan to build a little control panel under the TV and the plan grew and grew until we had a full control panel all the way to the ceiling covered in pieced together printouts of a really really huge picture I found online of the Space Shuttle cockpit. We also streamed youtube videos of views of earth on our TV which we framed to look like the windshield of the shuttle. I created a steering column and we put in a bunch of light switches because 3 year olds love to switch light switches and they were good cheap fun. I also glued on a space themed felt scene the kids could play with. I didn't make that, it was from Michael's.

For perspective, I'll now include a picture of O walking in front of that thing.

Just in case you don't already think we're completely nuts. We had one more major installment in the living room and that was the NASCOM (NASA Communication Center) unit complete with whisper tunnel we ran up through the ceiling into the attic and back down into O's room so the kids could talk to one another from opposite ends of the house. Before you think that's a silly thing to do just for a party . . . oh, it's totally staying there!! Well, not the unit but the device will be rerouted to land next to the bookcase hidden behind the unit so we can continue to play with it.

Just to the left of this unit was the doorway to the "moon" (aka a section of the garage that we sectioned off with black 2 mil plastic then attached stars all over, filled with 1.5 layers of balloons, a fog machine and a few black lights. Oh, it's also where the drinks were. I couldn't get any good pictures as the best part about the room was that it was dimly lit and starry but some of the braver kids enjoyed kicking balloons around in there and the grown ups had a little too much fun with the fog machine.

The weather turned out to be OK so we had our bouncy house inflated out in the back yard and the kids had a blast running between it and the play structure back there. The parents mostly huddled under the heating lamps we rented as it was still a bit chilly.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour of O's 3rd birthday party. It was completely over the top but we really have fun doing stuff like this. My husband and I work well together and I really love finding projects where we can truly join forces and go completely nuts.

Thank you for reading,
Julie