Grayson's Third Birthday!!!

I CANNOT believe Grayson is already three years old (well, really that won't be until Monday, but who's paying attention?) He truly is growing up in a flash and it's unreal to think about beginning school for him very soon! Here is the skinny on the birthday party: it's a pirate theme...can you believe it? This fact had Gray really wound up all day and night yesterday, so much so that he awoke at 5:30 am ready to go. I have to say, he is by no means a low maintenance kid, but today was one of the worst days we've ever had. I remember watching videos of my 3rd birthday and thinking, "What a terrible child I was!" Well, like mother, like Grayson! He whined about almost everything, and I'm sure this had nothing to do with sleep deprivation! But, you know what? At some point as embarrassed as I was, I remembered that he is my blessing and today was supposed to be for him. We still had plenty of time outs and "go to your room" , but all in all, it was a fun and eventful day, and you know what...I'm sure we'll do it all again next year.

Nana and Papa gave him his first Lightning McQueen bike

So the order of the party was supposed to go something like this: eat chili, treasure hunt for the kids, presents, then cut the cake. Well, due to Grayson's mood, it ended up going something like this: hand him the treasure box before guests even arrive to distract him from the despair that was his life :), ate a little lunch, opened the present Matt and I bought him (the pirate ship with the red sails in this picture), played with the pirate ship and wanted no part of the Happy Birthday singing and blowing out candles, brought the cake to him (see this pic) so we could get a picture of him with it, and threw presents at him as fast as possible so he would open them in front of everyone. Good news is he loved the ship Matt and I gave him! And when he finally saw the cake, he just leaned over and bit some off of it...so we got some laughs after all!

Our little ornery pirate

The good thing about having a pirate party was all the stuff Grayson already had to decorate with. One of the rooms in our house has a bit of a tropical theme, so we pulled from that and his bedroom to decorate.

cute little pirate plates

Matt convinced me to get this "decorate a room" to look like a pirate ship, and I thought it was way too over the top. But I admit, it wasn't expensive, and we didn't have to decorate much more...it was a hit.