Farris Foursome: Party #2 for a 3 year old

Last weekend was birthday party #2 for a 3 year old. But first I have to start by telling all about the morning & preparations. I found a new photographer that I wanted to try out for Valentine's Day pictures. She was doing a special mini-session for $50 and you get the CD plus a digital image of a Valentine's card. I was pretty excited as I had not had the kids pictures done since Thanksgiving. Of course pictures mean, new outfits. You know if you give a mom a new picture session, then she will want new clothes for the kids, if you give her new clothes & red shirts, then she will want new red shoes for her daughter, if you give her new red shoes, she will need a new red bow. Anyway so I ran around all week making sure that I had a great new shirt for Riley. But then I bought it too big, so back to Gymboree I went. Then I needed to pick a shirt for Alex that would match Rileys. Eventually I had 2 adorable complete outfits.
Saturday morning I worked really hard to make sure that Alex got a nap, everyone had lunch, was dressed and we were out the door in time. I arrived at the Gaylord 5 minutes before pictures. Just enough time to take everyone potty and add the bow to Alex's hair. As we were standing there drying our hands, my phone rang. It was the photographer. We were unable to take pictures there because the Gaylord wanted $1500 a session. Are they crazy???? Since the birthday party was shortly after the scheduled session time, we didn't have time to change locations. We made plans to meet up later in the week.
Then I faced my next dilema. I didn't want the kids going to a party and eating icing in their cute new outfits without having pictures made. Alex had a spare outfit in the diaper bag. One problem solved. Thinking back, I remembered that the Disney store was having a big clearance sale. Taking a chance, we rushed like mad through an overly crowded Grapevine Mills Mall to the Disney store. Luckily I found a Buzz Lightyear shirt for $5.72. SCORE!!!!!!!!! Mad rush continued back to the car and off to Plano for the birthday party. This party was for my best friend's son, Jacob. It was at a bounce house place. This was also Alex's first bounce house party where she was old enough to have fun. Have fun, she did!

Big Brother helping out!

A super fast slide! You can't tell it by this picture. But Riley had so much fun. He did the slide over and over again, even though each time he went sailing off the end and landed squarely on his backside!