a sweet celebration

For months leading up to CB's third birthday, I asked him what kind of party he wanted to have. We had been to many birthday parties throughout the year, so I thought he'd be inspired by some of the licensed character themed parties we attended. I decided I'd be nice and let him have a Mickey Mouse or Thomas party if he wanted one (normally, I'm *that* mom and don't let CB wear licensed characters on his clothes, with exception of underwear or pajamas!). CB on the other hand, had only one thing on his party brain: candy. Anytime I asked him what he wanted to do for his party, he said, "Candy! I just want candy!"

So, candy it was. And candy we did.

I decided to go with CB's (slightly scary) sweets obsession and have a Candyland themed birthday party. And you know what? It was a lot of fun! And easy, too!

I wanted the party to be as low-key as possible -- so I focused the theme on the sweets table:

I made a banner with different colored cardstock cut into candy and sweets and then used a Candyland-ish font for CB's name.

We also made a mini candy buffet using different jars to hold the candy. And I made the cake to kinda sorta resemble the Candyland board.

It was pretty much sugar upon sugar upon sugar. But, hey, birthdays only come once a year, right?! ;)

The rest of the decor was really simple:

Those colored paper balls were from Target and I wrapped colored plates in wax paper to resemble large wrapped hard candy. 

And wherever possible, we used pops of color in whatever was necessary for the party:

I also used some sidewalk chalk paint to paint the driveway:

The sidewalk paint ended up being quite a hit among the little party guests, too!

Being that CB and his pals were all three and under, we just put out bubbles, chalk, paint and lots of balls and sports equipment and let them play and mingle.

For food, we had pizza and Chick-fil-A nuggets and a few Korean dishes to honor CB's Korean heritage. It was very casual and relaxed and totally what we had wanted for CB's party.

We did try to do one organized activity with the little ones, which proved to be hilarious and turned out just as one would expected an "organized" activity with 3 year-olds to be. We played a cake walk type game, but instead of numbers, we used large Candyland spaces and the game cards.

After that, it was time for cake!

CB loved singing the Happy Birthday song to himself was just tickled at the fact that he got to blow out the candle!

He was a little over excited. If you look closely, you can see a line of drool coming from the birthday boy's mouth (and the look of disgust on my face!). We keep it classy. Don't worry, the little drool bomb landed on the table cloth.

And the little guests were happy to eat up the sugary sugary cake!

Over serious conversation, apparently. 

Though CB looks serious in nearly all these photos, don't be fooled he really did have fun!

And we did, too!

Even Hahmee and Hahbee had fun! 

We loved celebrating our sweet 3 year-old! :)