Eleanor's 3rd birthday

Because all of our birthdays in this family are within seven weeks of each other and we want the girls to each feel adequately celebrated as they get older since their days are only 3 weeks apart, we're toying with the idea of celebrating their birthdays on the actual day rather than waiting until the weekend before/after. Last year it worked very well because Eleanor's birthday fell on a Saturday. This year it fell on a Monday but we decided to try it anyway. We started the morning with her birthday presents.

Then we spent part of the morning having breakfast and playing with her new presents.

She had decided she wanted to do Busch Gardens for her birthday and Chris' sisters (whose birthday is the day after Eleanor's) and Gaby decided to come, too. Eleanor decided to wear a fancy dress to Busch Gardens that she got for her birthday and lots of people stared at her, but she did look quite cute!

We came home for a nap and then all her friends came over for a water-themed birthday party that evening. We had a sprinkler, slip and slide, baby pool, water table, and water balloons. There was a surprisingly long water balloon fight as the kids took a little while to figure out how to throw and break them. Our yard looked like confetti the next day :)

We also grilled hot dogs, had mac and cheese, watermelon, and birthday cake.

HappyBirthdayEleanor from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

Overall, there were about 50 people at the house for her party despite it being a Monday.

After all her friends went home, Grandma surprised her with a bike with training wheels that she has been practicing on this week.

We were very thankful that family could come down to celebrate this sweet girl, too!

Overall Eleanor had a great, but busy, day. She was exhausted and slept well that night! Happy birthday to our THREE year old!