Evan's 3rd Birthday Party

Lightening, Mater, Finn McMissle, Thomas, and many other friends and family all joined together to help Evan have an amazing 3rd Birthday Party on Saturday, August 6.

Jim and I designed and created this special 3rd Birthday shirt for him to wear at his party.  It was a shirt that had both Thomas and Cars 2 characters all in the same design.  Evan thought it was pretty cool!

The start of the party began with a few Arrival Activities...the big hit was the tattoo station we also had Cars and Thomas coloring pages.

My mom was the tattoo master and helped all the kiddos get inked up.

Here are Blake and Evan comparing tattoos.

Evie got in on the fun too, she thought it was pretty neat and kept looking at her arms to look at the new artwork that appeared.

The Cake Table and some Decor...

The Games...our first game was the World Grand Prix (just like in Cars 2).  The kids loved it and wanted to keep playing multiple times.  Here they are racing to the finish line.  

 

Our second game was the Tire Ball Toss.  This was also a lot of fun.  Here is a picture with Evan in action.

This next activity was one of my favorites, the Party Train Game.  All the kids got Conductor Hats and Train Whistles and then they were to line up and chug into the house for our final game of the day.  Evan was so into this.  His favorite part was he got to say, "All Aboard!" and then the kids would all begin to move in a train style motion.

Here is the beginning of the lining up process.

They stuck together for a little bit. (Is this not the cutest thing?!?!)

But eventually they lost a few Train Cars, a.k.a. Evie and Gavin. :)

They did however, catch back up only to have the train crash on purpose.  Evan got such a big kick of having the train derail.  Just look at that smile in both pics below.  The other kids seemed to like it too and follow suit. :)

Our final game was Hot Coal, similar to Hot Potato.  Jim played the Thomas and Friends theme song and then the kids passed around a pretend Hot Coal.  The hard part with this game was that it just broke my heart to really have the kids get out so we just kept passing it around and pretending it was a very Hot Coal so you had to pass it quickly. :)  You can see Blake has it in this round and is getting ready to pass it to Evie.

Since the games didn't really have any specific winners, I had arranged for prizes for everyone.  This was a lot of fun too- the prizes were all Cars 2 and Thomas themed! :)

After the Games and Activities it was time for the Food and Drinks...

Our BBQ Master, Jim...isn't he so handsome!

The kids eating their food.  Don't you love that there was a girl table and boy table.  This wasn't planned just kind of happened. :)

After lunch it was Present Time...Evan was very excited!

Everyone was extremely generous!  Evan made out like a bandit and loved it all- Thank you everyone!

After the Gifts it was Cake time...when this was announced everyone cheered, especially the the kids and I think Evie was the loudest of them all. :)

 

Proud Mommy and Daddy with their handsome 3 year old!

I think he liked the cupcake or should I say the frosting! :)

 

Here our pics of some of the guests at the party...

Blake, Levi, and Katie

Bethany, Travis, Savannah, and Gavin

Jayne, Natalie, and Tyler

Pops and Daddy

Uncle Rhett and Aunt Debra 

I leave you with some other really cute and fun photos...

Grandpa rocking away on Evan's new electric guitar.

The Tongue...I guess this must be a family trait. :)

 

Thank you everyone for helping to make Evan's 3rd Birthday Party such a wonderful event.  We are blessed to have you in our lives and love you all!

Quick Downtown Disney Visit

On our way home from Riverside we made a stop at Downtown Disney.  Everyone was so excited.  We visited the Lego Store and Evan got to pose with Lego Woody.

We of course had the buy the kids some souvenirs at the World of Disney too.  Here are Jim and Evan waiting in line to buy them.

And me and the kids out in front of the store. :)

 

Lastly the big excitement of our stop was lunch at Rainforest Cafe.  We had a really nice time.  However, funny story about our lunch, well we totally had to get a down graded table because Evan was afraid of the elephants and we couldn't sit next to them or even in a place where you could have them in sight.  Oh this boy.  So we were right next to the Hostess Area, not horrible, but not our first pick.  Nevertheless, Evan was happy; this is what was important right. :)  The animals nor the noises didn't even seem to phase Evie, she was good with everything.  The funny part is our seats were actually closer to the gorillas which you would think may be a little more frightening, but not to Evan. :)

Visit to Riverside

On the weekend of July 29 to August 1 we drove down to visit Grandma Knight and Aunt Alison and to also see the rest of our family in Riverside for a quick visit.  We had a really nice time and since Evan's Birthday was the weekend right after they were so kind and decided to have a special family Birthday Party for him during our stay.  He was thrilled!  Here are the kids both ready to open some arrival gifts from Grandma and Auntie the Friday we got there.  

Evan and Grandma posing with his new book.  He loves it!  She read it to him that night too and throughout the weekend.  It remains to be a special book at home now too.

 

On Saturday, we woke up and drove to visit the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris.  We all had so much fun, especially Evan.  It was a unique demonstration railway museum so you could ride several different types of trains.  We rode all of them that were available that day.

Here are Aunt Alison and Evie waiting together before we board the train.

Here is most of the crew, Grandma Knight had stepped away for a second to use the restroom.

These were some of the super cool trains we got to ride.

Evan was a happy camper on each train.  He was having a blast!

He was so excited he didn't want to stop and pose for a picture in front of this train, thus why he is missing. :)

The museum was very nice and had a lot to offer, except air conditioning.  When we left the kids were pretty wiped out and immediately feel asleep as soon as they got in the car.

Later that day we all headed over to Cousin Bob and Debbie's house for the special birthday celebration for Evan.  Here is a picture of Cousin Emma and Evie playing together during the party.

Evan was having a great time kicking the soccer ball with Cousin Robert.

The kids also got to go swimming with Daddy.  Good times!

Here is the gang eatting the delicious dinner.  So yummy!

In this picture are all the cousins, Robert, Jim's Cousin Becky, and her kids Emma and Andrew.

 

After dinner Alison had some fun party games for the kids to play.  The party was sport's themed (soccer and baseball) this game was pin the ball on Home Plate.  The hiliarious thing about this game was all the kids were getting the ball right at home plate, but were not fessing up that they could see through the blind fold.  We didn't find out until Cousin Andrew's turn happened and he blurted out "I can see."  So funny.  It was still a great game.

There was also a really neat soccer relay game.  Here are the kids getting ready to begin.

After the games it was cake time- delicious Soccer and Baseball cupcakes!  Evan loved them along with the rest of the party.  

The big kids liked them too.

Evan's favorite part of the party was opening presents.  Here he is in action about to open his first present from Grandma Knight that evening.  The other kids were very excited.

One of his presents included a singing Cars 2 card from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Herb and he absolutely loved it.  He continues to listen to it now.  I love this picture below of all the kids looking/listening to the card and Evan's little smile.

And finally here are the children now playing with all the birthday loot.  So awesome!  The kids had the best time.

On Sunday, our final full day of the visit, we headed to Laguna Beach.  The crazy thing about this day was that it started off pouring rain in Riverside.  We weren't even sure we were going to make it to the beach, but we took a chance and when we got to Laguna the weather was perfect!  Everyone had a great time playing in the water and sand.

We had so much fun visiting Grandma Knight and Aunt Alison along with all of our other amazing family.  Thank you for blessing us with love and the best hospitality.  Can't wait to see you all again real soon.  Love you!