Tucker's third birthday!

I just got the pictures back from our friend and photographer and they are amazing! When I started planning Tucker's party I had just gotten familiar with pinterest and I made a board filled with party ideas. My first party pin was a cardboard box train. That's where the idea started. All of the blogs I found with train parties were so shiny and happy. The pictures the bloggers shared made it all look so effortless and perfect...well, coming up, I am going to pin a lot of Tucker's party and I am also going to link it to a long post here with FULL DISCLOSURE of how hard it was to pull off! It turned out to be an amazing party and the pictures are full of smiles but it took a lot of late nights to get us to that point and to me...that's what sharing should be- a forum for honesty. I know I appreciate it when another mom is kind enough to be real. It makes me feel like I am not alone and helps me not be so hard on myself. I would not have taken on ANY of the things I did for T's party if I could not do it joyfully. Several times through the preparations my mom would ask me "Why are you doing this to yourself?" I reminded her that I still have the hand tinted icing unicorn that topped my 7th birthday cake. It was homemade and came after mom had taken a master cake decorating class. It is a work of art and an expression of love from her that I treasure. She laughs that she is not an artist but if I pulled out that unicorn that she painstakingly made me and showed it to her I know she would feel proud. Our hard work makes amazing memories for our kids. That's why we do it to ourselves. Tyler asked if we were going to throw the trains away. Absolutely not! I found a Cars party on pinterest where the kids had cardboard box cars and they raced in the driveway. Hello! I think it's safe to say Tucker's 4th birthday party will be a Cars theme!

So here are some of the pictures from the day. The long full disclosure post will come later. For now, enjoy the appearance of effortlessness! :-)