The Little Man's 3rd Birthday - Speed Style

After returning from our vacation to Destin, I had five days to pull together everything for Alex's 3rd birthday party. I was ready to hit the ground running come Monday morning. The problem? We returned home to find most of our city without power from the storms that passed through just days before. When I say without power, I mean businesses closed. For days. Put a crimp in a girl's party planning, that's for sure.

Thank goodness Walmart was up and running. It was almost one-stop shopping for all things "Speed" party related. I loaded that buggy up! I could not disappoint my Little Man who is a lover of all things Speed, a.k.a. Lightning McQueen.

Alex talked for months about wanting a "Speed" birthday party. Well, a Speed birthday party it was - complete with Speed cake, Speed games, and Speed prizes.

One night after Roo went to bed, I took Alex to the store to order his birthday cake. We looked at all of the Cars cakes they offered, and he got to pick out the one he liked best. I wasn't surprised that he chose this one because he had been eyeing it for weeks. We ordered it in chocolate, his favorite. When we sang Happy Birthday, he sat next to his cake looking a little sad. I don't think he enjoyed being in the spotlight too much.

But he was all for blowing the candles out. It took a few tries, but he got those suckers blown out!

Here he is enjoying his cake. The black icing they used for the track left lots of black teeth and lips. He wasted no time eating because he was anxious to get right to the gifts. =)

One of his birthday gifts - a blue M&M dispenser. The boy LOVES most anything that's blue, but most especially "blue M&Ns" as he calls them.

One of the gifts he asked for was a "sfarkly Sfeed with sfarkly wheels and sfarkly eyes." Of course they don't make "sparkly Speed with sparkly wheels and sparkly eyes" anymore because that was from Cars - The Original. Thank goodness for ebay! Jerry tracked the thing down months ago, and we hid it until Alex's birthday. I don't have any pictures of it to share, but he was excited to get it. Until he told us that it wasn't the right one.  What?! It was exactly like the one he showed us!! Go figure. I am happy to report that it is getting some action in play time these days, though.

One of his other gifts...

Think he was having a good time? Yes he was - running us all down. We've got a lot of work to do in the next 13 years before he hits the road solo! Watch out - KACHOW!

Here's Noni hard at work keeping Roodle out of harm's way. We had a few close calls!

It didn't take much for Little Man to end up, shall we say...slightly off course? Poor Pop Pop played the role of Mater, pulling Speed out when he got stuck. Pop Pop Mater stayed very busy! LOL!

Here's Alex and his friends doing some Speed bowling.

And the tire races.

Noni and I helped the girl's team. =)

The day after the party was Alex's actual birthday, so we just continued the celebration right on through the weekend. We took him to the bounce house place, another of his favorite activities.

While Alex rode the slide over and over and over again, Roo played with the balls, one of his favorite pastimes.

And after dinner at Chipotle, we got frozen yogurt at a new little yogurt bar in town called Bloop. Very cute. It had just opened the day before, and the sweet owners were kind enough to offer to take a family photo. =)

Yes, it was a weekend packed full of fun and laughter. Lots of smiles and lots of playing. And many thanks to Noni and Pop Pop for coming to help make this celebration so special!