Birthday Part 1: Happy 2nd Birthday to Me!

I turned 2 today! 

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In case you couldn’t attend, my birthday party was actually on Father’s Day, June 19th.  It was a fish-themed birthday party because it’s what I love these days.  Once Mommy gets wind of something I like, it’s a dead giveaway for a birthday theme.

The truth is that Mommy started planning my birthday party about  6 months ago, immediately after she passed the oral ob/gyn boards.  My Mommy was neurotic about it, but there are good reasons why:

– She could plan ahead and get 40% off any regularly-priced item at Michaels.  Mommy bought an average of 1-2 items per week (depending on how many coupons she could get a hold of).  By the time 6 months had rolled around, Mommy had gotten all of the cake decorations, favors and other knick knacks for 40% off.

– She could follow items on Amazon and save when the prices go down.

– She could order a personalized t-shirt for me and make sure it arrived on time.  No, it doesn’t take 6 months to order a t-shirt, but mine was actually delivered to the wrong place and had to be reshipped.

– She could do a little bit each week without feeling as overwhelmed doing it all during the last month.

– Lastly, she had to reserved Clemyjontri Park in January in order for me to have my birthday there.

Now, onto the party!  We had about 35-40 people there under the pavilion at Clemyjontri Park. 

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We arrived about 1.5 hours before the party to set up and it just enough time to put on the finishing touches!

The pavilion and decorations.  Just the balloons were enough to cause trouble!  Thanks to Uncle Wade’s amazing ability blow up fish mylar balloons ordered from Bargain Balloons in Canada, Uncle Vince’s ability to curl green balloons to make them look like seaweed and GongGong’s ability to secure the “seaweed” on a base.  Thanks to Uncle Dedo with his degree from Cornell School of Engineering in figuring out how to suspend the birthday banner across a very wide space.  Mommy made the banner by cutting some fish from construction paper and using fish cut-outs from the dollar store.

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The shirt.  My personalized birthday shirt ordered from Etsy.

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The food display.  All vegetarian meal ordered from Vegetable Garden.  Thanks to Aunt Holly for setting it up!  Fifteen  person servings and still with plenty of left0vers after serving 35-40 people!

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The fruit display.  Yes, it’s a shark carved by Uncle Wade.  Mommy is going to dedicated an entire entry to Uncle Wade’s process of carving the shark in the near future. 

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The lollipop stand. Melville lollipops on a stand painted by Mommy.

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The favors.  The bags have a label ordered from Etsy which says “Thanks for swimming by my party.  Love, Caden.”  Each bag contains a bag-o-fish glycerin soap (see future entry on how the glycerin soap was made), Melville fish lollipops, bag of Swedish fish, bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and an inflatable fish.

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The cake.  Fondant decorations Mommy made a week ago.  Royal icing mini sea creatures Mommy ordered from Etsy.  Mommy & Aunt Ellie decorated a $17.99 plain Costco white cake.  The “water” look was made using Wilton’s blue Sparking Gel.

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Last, but not least, Mommy couldn’t have pulled this off without the tremendous help from Daddy, GongGong, PoPo, Aunt Ellie, Uncle Dedo, Aunt Holly, Uncle Wade, and Uncle Vince.  There were so helpful in everyway and fufilled Mommy’s every wish, even though Mommy can be very much like a dictator when it comes to accomplishing tasks.

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Thank you for all for making the fish party come alive!

Note:  Mommy wants to extend a special “thank you” to Uncle Wade and Aunt Ellie for taking virtually all of the photos at the birthday party.  Without you both, the birthday blogs would not be possible!

Where’s Mommy? Not at the National Harbor!

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Daddy took “all” of us to National Harbor today.  “All” of us, except Mommy. 

Where was Mommy, you ask?

Well, she went to Charlottesville, VA for a Kaiser Permanente conference after being selected by her chief to be a coach for other physicians on how to be “efficient.”  Funny how my Mommy is considered an “efficiency coach” considering how much more inefficient she has become since having me.

So while Mommy was driving on the famed “Route 29,” the rest of us went to National Harbor for the first time. 

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We hung around at The Awakening which is a 70-foot (21 m) statue of a giant embedded in the earth, struggling to free himself.  He was embedded in a large area of sand.  I felt a little more comfortable in the sand than I had on previous occasions.

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We also visited the Peeps Store there.  Boy, did I love them Peeps!  Maybe I’ll design a Peeps diorama one of these days when I am older for the annual Washington Post competition.

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