The Dude & The Precious: Dale's Tiger Party

When I first asked Dale what kind of birthday party he wanted, he immediately said, "Cars." Flat out. I knew he meant race cars, and I started mentally planning the best race car party I could think of. But then a few weeks later...just to check...I asked Dale again what kind of birthday party he wanted. "Tigers." Well crap. Every time I asked after that the answer stayed the same, so even though I had already ordered Dale the cutest little race car invitations, a tiger party it had to be. Mostly he was concerned with the cake. He had to have a tiger cake on his tiger birthday, and he would tell me this fact almost daily while growling and clawing like a tiger. How can a mother resist that? No seriously, I just wanted him to stop growling at me.

The morning of Dale's party, we took a few pictures of Dale before he went tiger wild.

Rose, although she had maximus adorable-us curl-us, refused photographs that day. I'm guessing it's because she had a pretty dress on. Yep, that must be it. Put the girl in stained jammies and don't brush her hair for two days, and voila, she'll give you the cutest faces for the camera. But if you put Rose in a pretty dress, you can forget about pictures. In fact, I only have to have my camera in the general vicinity for her to start crying real tears. Real tears. I have no idea where she gets that from.

Yes, yes she is a perfect angel.

Then the party started!

Dale's birthday present from Mommy and Daddy was his brand new big boy bed. We stretched that toddler bed as long as we could. The poor dude barely fit in it anymore, so he was thrilled to walk into his bedroom and see his very own big boy bed. Bear and Elephant were waiting for Dale on the new bed, and when Dale saw the scene, he crawled right in and got all comfy. It was a good thing.