celebration: Birthday Balloon Surprise – A Mission of Joy

This past Saturday was V’s 3rd Birthday (yikes – I can’t believe I am a mama of a THREE YEAR OLD)!  All this week I will be sharing all the little details that went into her arts–n-crafts themed birthday party :)  The activities, the food, & the favors!

♥

One of my favorite things is party planning!  I love the details and the excitement of coordinating it and making it all come together.  My not so favorite thing about me & my party planning, is that I usually have a vague map in my head of what I want to do but don’t sit down to plan anything until a couple of days before – I suppose I work best under pressure & no sleep!  So what do I mean by vague map?  Well, at all times, when I am at a store and I see something that sparks an idea, within reason, I usually will purchase it to use in the future (I definitely have craft supply & party supply hoarding issues).  But because I do this, I usually have things on hand when that “bright idea” hits me.  So, two days before V’s birthday I decided, wouldn’t it be great to cover her floor with balloons (soooo glad I bought that HUGE bag of balloons a while back – you know, just because)!  She will wake up and be super excited to see balloons covering her floor (I just couldn’t stand all the joy I envisioned)!  We did this the night before V’s third birthday party, which this year, coincided with her actual birthday!

The night before:  While I whittled away on started on my list of to-dos for the next day, I gave hubs the job of blowing up as many balloons as he possibly could – the more, the merrier– I envisioned full floor coverage (lofty mama expectations ;)  The hubs & I then quietly brought trash bags full of balloons up to her room, snuck in, and placed them one by one covering her entire floor.

The night of:  V nightmare one – “MOMMY”- I sprang into action, afraid she would see the balloons before the intended birthday morning surprise.  I figured I’d block her view with my body as I hugged her tight & told her it was just a bad dream – yes, it worked.  V nightmare two – this time I was in a deep sleep but that didn’t stop me, I bolted out of the bedroom door crashing into the open baby gate in the hallway (cursing myself for leaving it open – argh – add that to my list of bruises), waking the hubs up in the process.  But balloon crisis averted AGAIN – whew!

The next morning:  She wakes up, is awake for awhile just sitting there.  Hubs & I rush to her bedroom, half asleep, but smiling ear to ear super excited to see her reaction, with camera in hand.  I had the camera ready and waiting in the hall bathroom (of course I did) LOL!  She sees us.  She sees me with the camera.  We shout “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”.  She still has not EVEN NOTICED her entire floor covered in balloons.  We have to tell her about the balloons.  She sits on the bed pondering this complexity.  She springs to her feet & with extreme joy starts throwing and kicking the balloons.  Yay – mission of joy – a success!

She even decided to “hide” the boo (her favorite color)  balloons behind our door – you know, so T couldn’t get them – LOL!

V’s 3rd birthday started off kinda’ perfect – and the almost hidden smile here that I caught – well, it just makes my heart melt :)

Have you ever done a crazy birthday surprise?

Did you dream it up for weeks/months/years in advance, or wait until the last minute like moi?

xx ♥ m