Avi had his first party today. Aunt Bethany organized his second birthday party at the Williamsburg park. It was adorable. My plan was really to do nothing much since his birthday isn’t for a few more weeks, but, of course, since we are here in PA visiting family it seemed that everyone wanted a party or at least a time to gift. Great! And Bethany was happy to jump on the task. It was so great!
The park is a great place with a nice pavillion, playground, and the creek. Thank goodness the weather held out too. It has been raining the last couple days straight, but it was all sunny today! Bethany went all out with her Choo Train theme. The pavillion was Station #2, complete with a taped-down train track down the middle. There were balloons and train crossing signs, engineer hats and neckercheifs for everyone, train plates and napkins, decor, and the coupe de gras…. Bethany enlisted Dad into creating a train engine out of the wagon. It was a work of art. When Avi saw it all he squealed, “Train train!” and had a blast pulling around the wagon.
Bryan called from Korea soon after it started at 4pm. It was so nice to see and talk to him, and let him see the party even if our Skype connection was slow. Avi was so busy pulling his wagon train that he would’nt stop to see Daddy on the phone. Sad as he’s been crying for Daddy at night, but the train and party and kids were super fun. Bryan got to see everyone briefly and called back without the video to talk. We are excited to see him and our new place in Korea very soon!
The whole fam showed up for the event – all the grandparents and great grandparents plus some freinds, aunts, cousins, and uncles. A good crowd of folks and some kids to play with. Everyone brought a dish too, so we had quite the selection of hotdogs, sloppy joe’s, beans, fruit, macaroni, pasta, bread, and other stuff. Yum! Mostly we visited and ate while the kiddo’s played and dragged
the train around. Avi loved pulling it and is such a strong little guy he could pull Zoe or the other kids a bit. He rode in it, too and played at the playground with Aunt Bethany. Eventually he was hungry and chowed down in his red metal high chair; the one mom and dad bring camping. He played hard and ate a lot! After that we sang to Avi and he blew out the candles on his cake. There was even a little train on it to hold his two candles. He blew them out one at a time since it took me too long to get them lit! The kids all crowded around for their piece and were off. It was a chocolate cake with white icing. Avi loved it and devoured his piece from perched up in his chair. Such a cute little guy.
For a while after that it was more play and then we got Avi to open a few gifts on the ground. He really just wanted to play with each one as he opened them, and I realized we probably should’ve just opened a few a time throughout the party. oh well, he loved his new wooden train, train tracks and tunnel, his new train books, his bug, his playmobil four wheeler, and seemed to think clothes were fun to open if nothing else. We didn’t push all the gifts on him since he was getting crazed, confused and crying when we’d encourage him to put down a cool new toy and open something else. So, later in the evening at home he opened some more from Nan, Grandpa Joe and Aunt Bethany. His favorite being a nutto sound making phone that we promptly had to take the batteries out. He still seems satisfied with pretending to make phone calls.
The party wound down after gifts. The kids played at the playground until the bitter end while we cleaned and tidied and got going. A rousing success! It was so nice to see everyone one last time before heading out of PA, and Avi had a great time. Thanks Aunt Bethany and Mom and Dad for all the planning.