Rachel's Party at Paradise Pond

We planned a little birthday party for Rachel. We thought about having something at our house but it's really too small to do much there. We thought about a party at a park. However, Nicholas' last party involved go carts outside and it was a big bummer on the party when there was a sudden drop in temperatures the night before and chilly rain during the party. We're done withe outdoor parties.

The kids love playing at Paradise Pond, an indoor play area at First Baptist Church of Grapevine. So we arranged to have her birthday party there. Indoor fun, lots of space, different activities to keep any kid interested, and I wouldn't have to worry about a bunch of 3 year olds tearing through our house.

Paradise Pond is such a fun place for kids. They have an awesome indoor climbing structure.

Even Stuart climbed to the top. I love that he has fun being a kid again too!

Whee! That slide coming down was super fast!

My kids have always loved the costume and dress-up area.

I love Rachel's smile on the little roller coaster.

There is a doctor area with lots of baby dolls to take care of.

Doctor Rachel in scrubs tells Daddy how the baby is doing.

And even an indoor bounce house with slides!

Rachel was so excited when her best friend, Mashiyat, showed up.

When it was time to take a break, we called everyone over to sing Happy Birthday

I couldn't tell for sure if Rachel liked all the attention or not.

She did great blowing out her candles on her Hello Kitty cake.

Happy Birthday sweet Rachel! You have brought so much more joy and laughter to our home than I could have imagined. We love you!

Time for cake! I love that the Paradise Pond staff took care of setting up everything in the party room with all the Hello Kitty party gear that I brought.

Rachel, of course, just used her fork to scrape off and eat the icing on the cake. I don't think she ever actually tasted the chocolate cake that she asked for. Why waste tummy space on cake when one can just fill up on icing?

After cake, the kids went back out to play and burn off some of that sugar rush.

This little roller coaster ride was such a great hit with everyone!

Of course, there was a lot of time spent in the bounce house too.

I love this happy little girl so full of energy and fun.

Rachel had a lot of fun at her party even though several friends weren't able to make it.

We didn't want to waste fun party time with opening presents so we let her open those when we got home. You can't help but notice how interested Nicholas is in everything that Rachel got.

It's hard to be little and see others getting cool presents and not want to play with them right away too. For the most part, Rachel lets him play with her toys...until she screeches and then you know she is all done playing with him.