Jamie turned THREE on February 23, 2018! We celebrated with friends on family the following day at Chuck E. Cheese’s in Kent, Washington. My mom and dad made it from over the mountains, Clynn’s grandparents and parents were there, Jamie’s favorite cousin was there, our awesome friends, Dan and his kiddos/nephews came, and Clynn’s sister plus her boyfriend and son. It was quiet the party and I’m so happy I didn’t try to host in our new home with such a great turn out! Jamie was surrounded by so much support and love. I am just in awe at his support team he’s had since day one!

He loved playing basketball, riding the fire truck (he even did engine/light checks and prepped the imaginary hose), Playing with so many friends and just the overall excitement of being at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Just like last year, he managed to blow out his candles and have them re-lit three times before the end of “Happy Birthday To You” sung by a ginormous crowd and a handful of other birthday parties going on at the same time throughout the venue. Note his cousin’s “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BLOW YET!!!” face in all of his cake photos. Crackin me up!

Jame was a little young to understand the ticket tornado. They stick the birthday boy in a capsule and blow a ton of air into it. How every many tickets they grab/sitck in their pockets they can keep to redeem for prizes. They let up to two kids in there at a time so Dan’s little guy snuck in too! He wasn’t in love with the wind you could say. His hat fell off and Jamie turned his efforts to helping Nick with his hat instead of grabbing tickets! Our party planner was on it and handed him a handful from the bottom before locking it up since he had only grabbed two or three.

After the crowds got to be a little much about half of us headed back to our house where Jamie opened gifts and played with his new toys and an insane collection of balloons we had accumulated over the 48 hours that was Jamie’s birthday! (there are actually still about ten on the ceiling of his bedroom and I’m thinking they may need to be a permanent feature in his bedroom decor).

Our little man is THREE with all the curiosity and attitude to match! ♥ He talks more than any three year old I’ve ever met and spits out new words and phrases by the hour. He’s learning to be patient and gentle with his little brother, often overestimating Leo’s strengths. I know they’ll be a handful when they are physically compatible to wrestle. (Heaven bless us…) He loves baseball, basketball, playing in mud puddles, racing, climbing, paw patrol, umizoomi, looking through family photo books again and again, “the beach” (a daily request even though he only remembers a tiny river front. He’s going to die of excitement when we take our family vacay to ocean shores this late spring!), and the Trolls sound track on replay. He just started singing along to his favorite shows theme songs and some songs from Trolls and it’s so funny to listen to him try to keep up and fun to listen to him actually improve the more he tries!

We love our Jamie-Boy. When he falls asleep about 5 nights of the week Clynn and I take a second to watch him saying “He’s getting so freakin BIG.” We can hardly believe this adorable kid-sized human came from us! It’s one thing to have a baby or a young toddler, but we have KID now. He’s sassy and funny and obnoxious and loud and sweet and caring and smart. Here’s to THREE years little man. ♥

A quick review on Chuck E. Cheese Birthdays:

Don’t go on a Saturday unless you plan to reserve the very first early morning slot. THIS WAS CHAOS. We had to have been tipping maximum occupancy. I photographed a little differently for allot of the cake shots to cancel out background distractions and some of the chaos to focus on Jamie. I was under the intention our time slot reserved meant we would be the only birthday party during that time….FALSE. There had to have been four other birthday parties going on at the same time ontop of all the regular traffic. I’m so happy we had so many adults compared to children present to help with the kiddos.

That being said, the staff blew us away. We had our very own party team who made sure Jamie had one on one time with Chuck E. prepped our cake, helped keep us on schedule with the cake cutting, ticket machine, etc. We got to work with the same two girls all day and they were so so attentive. They cut our cake, prepped it with our toppers, lit candles, clean up, took our pizza orders, boxed up left overs, made sure everyone had drinks, everything and anything these girls were AMAZING and if I could rate them with TEN STARS instead of five, I would!!!

The party was incredibly affordable. We purchased extra balloons, they provided the cake, everyone had plenty of play tokens in the bottom tier, (Jamie still has a ton on his birthday card I’m sure) and Jamie still has nearly a thousand tickets to pick toys from the prize counter next time we go (some of our guests gave him their tickets. SO SWEET.). With all of our extra add ons we paid about $250 for 8 kids, about 12 adults, extra balloons, pizza for all the kids, drinks for everyone, one large pizza, house provided cake (you can bring your own) and tickets for all the kids! We could have easily kept it to $150 if we had needed to.

I would definitely say Chuck E. Cheese is a great place for an affordable birthday party, not having to host, clean up, or set up, but recommend a Tuesday or Wednesday evening party rather than mid day Saturday to avoid so much chaos!