the dino-mite birthday boy

i had a terribly difficult time picking a theme for hendrix's birthday party this year as his interests seem to change so quickly and i could hardly develop an idea before he was moving on to the next thing.  :)  my original plan was to go cowboy and maybe even have the party at a farm.  then i wanted to do dr. seuss as he loves the cat in the hat and i adore the turquoise and red color-theme. 

but our final decision was to go dinosaur, as he took a recent interest, bordering on obsession with them, and loves to watch the dinosaur train!  he knows more different dinosaur names than me, and likes to pretend he is one. 

also his big birthday present from mom and dad this year was a sandbox, and i saw some fun ideas about how we could incorporate that into his party activites by doing a "dinosaur dig" with his friends ;)

  

the food was pretty low key, as i just served some of his favorite snacks and cupcakes.

i really LOVE how this personalized shirt i ordered turned out, and he has worn it at least a dozen times already.  i bought it a size too big on purpose and imagine that it will be a favorite for a while ;)

we prepped a craft project of dino mask making for his friends to work on as they arrived, and hoped that they would want to have a dino dance party later with their fun masks on!  

we buried a couple dozen little dinosaurs inside easter eggs, so the kids could dig for them, and let them hatch.  hendrix was a big helper here, and i think that he dug and re-dug for the same dinos at least 7 or 8 times during the party!  lol

he was really excited to share with his friends!

the sandbox is something that daddy built for hendrix, and it has handy built-in benches for kiddos to sit on, that also close up to be a cover to protect the sandbox.  it looks real nifty and is super functional.  daddy did a great job!

surprisingly hendrix spent a ton of time helping daddy create a cool mask, and was even willing to wear it for a while!  he loves craft projects, but i didn't think he would sit still enough to do it with all the kids at his house!

because he had already had a few birthday celebrations, he sang along to the birthday song, and blew out his candles like a pro!  he was very proud of himself ;)

then we had a little dino storytime, which didn't keep the kids' attention for very long; but hendrix does love this book about the ten little dinosaurs.

present opening kind of went by in a blur, as hendrix opened his first present and then just wanted to play with it.  then all the other kids took turns helping him, and i tried to just keep straight what he got from whom ;)  he got tons of fun new games, dinos, and books.  we have had lots of fun putting things away in his playroom!

this is hendrix's favorite gal pal, flora.  he goes to play at her house when mommy has to work, and it has been fun to watch these two grow up together.  they are really close in age (only about 6 weeks apart), and their mommy's are very good friends too!

we had a fabulous party, and now mommy is ready to shift the focus off making her big boy feel special and onto getting ready for her little girl to arrive ;)