Little Jacks just turned 3 and we wanted to make it special.  During the whole months of March and April, I agonized about how to accomplish that.  Everything felt either overdone or was expensive (and I had no interest in spending a lot of money to make it happen).

We asked LJ what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said, “I want to do it at Montessori School.”  That would be fun and easy, but obviously not allowed by school policy.  When we asked a second time, she decided that she wanted to “go to the fire station.”  I didn’t even know if doing something like that would be possible, but we decided to explore it.  What do you know?  Fire station tours are a “thing,” and we were allowed to set one up for her party!

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We planned to go to the fire station and then have food and cake at the park across the street.  Perfect and easy party plan, right?  Because it was going to be so low maintenance, I decided that we could have a bigger party.  The more, the merrier at the park, after all!

Well, the best laid plans…  The day before the party, a storm rolled in.  It wasn’t just cloudy and misty, though.  It was dumping! We were still pretty convinced that things would clear in time for the festivities, so we tried not to panic.  In Utah, the weather changes quickly. But we did clean the house just in case!  Saturday dawned dark and rainy, so it was time to enact our plan B. We had to pull off a party of 20 children and their parents in our living room with decorations designed for outdoors.

Luckily, I had the help of Hellobee’s own @Honeybee and her family to help get things ready.  We made a cake table, hung a banner and used the balloons that were going to decorate the park inside and outside the house.

I made the banner from fabric strips. I can do a banner tutorial later if people are interested.  It was truly the easiest craft I’ve ever done! We got some of those fun stripey paper straws and we were able to reuse some of our wedding glass for sour candy balls.  We got an 8 inch cake and about 40 half sized cupcakes.  I learned that half sized cupcakes are perfect for cooped up 3 year olds who are already hopped up on a fire station tour and pink lemonade!

Honeybee lined the banister with balloons.

Once we finished setting up, it was time to head to the fire station. We made little flyers that said, “Whoops! We may not be in Seattle, but it sure looks like it today. Please head to our house instead of the park after the tour of the fire station.”

At the fire station, Little Jacks was pretty overwhelmed but really enjoyed sitting in the driver’s seat of the fire engine.

Fire fighters showed us how the trucks work and taught us fire safety!
One of LJ’s very besties! He is so adorable!

After the fire station, it was time for snacks, cake, and cupcakes. We had sandwich fixings, including caprese for the vegetarians, cold cuts for the meat eaters, hummus and pita chips, and fruit salad before cake time.  But mostly, the kids were waiting for cake!


Cake surrounded by mini-cupcakes.  Look at the laser-like focus on these children!


Party favors were books, Richard Scary’s “Busiest Firefighters Ever,” thanks to @Mrs. High Heels and @Mrs. Owlmom. The picture frame says, “Please take a book for your little firefighter.” We did not want “throw-away” favors!

A word about Little Jacks’ dress. I really wanted a dress that matched the picture on the invitation.  (Totally irrational, I know).  I picked the invitation because the little girl on it looked like our LJ.  I thought it would be fun if she matched!


A sample of the invitation we chose.  This little girl looked so much like LJ, I thought.

I found some very cute dresses locally that weren’t an exact match to the invitation but were beautiful.  I loved both dresses and couldn’t decide between them, so I polled the hive while I was in the store.  I got amazing instant feedback (a testament to the power of this community), but still couldn’t decide, so I brought LJ in to try them on. Unfortunately, she was absolutely swimming in both of them!  The 3Ts were falling off her and there was no 2T available.  Feeling dejected, I went to the boutique next door to the one we were at (on the recommendation of a local friend) and there was a beautiful Oilily dress that nearly matched the invite perfectly.  We were thrilled and got it immediately. Irrational mission accomplished!

And as soon as the party was over, the skies cleared and the sun shown through.  It was a perfect metaphor for the age of 3!

And so begins another wonderful year with our wonderful growing girl.  Thanks for sharing her day with us.