Tyler's 3rd Heavenly Birthday Celebration

This past weekend we celebrated Tyler's 3rd birthday in heaven. We choose a fishing theme and had the party at Castaway Island, a local state park that is right on the intracoastal and has a dock for fishing etc. Unfortunately on the day of the party it was REALLY low tide so there wasn't any fishing! We still had fun though! (My mom got these adorable mint tins made that say Tyler Matthew Gray, Walking with Jesus, I love them!!!)


We choose a simple menu with hot dogs as the main course and then lots of people offered to bring sides. I also borrowed pools from 2 friends to fill up and let the kids play in. This was a fiasco! I checked the day before to see if the park has a hose we could use to fill up the pools with, they didn't so I had the not so bright idea to bring lots of jugs of water to use to fill the pools then we could keep filling the jugs up with water from the bathroom which was right beside the picnic table. Well... let's just say that didn't go so well. I never realized just how much water goes into those little pools!!!! Luckily Roni went looking for a facuet and found one! Yay!!!! The guys made a couple trips with a HUGE cooler and filled them up! I have to say once filled it was a success the little kids loved the pools!

We also had a bubble machine and water balloons! All the kids loved the water balloons but they were gone sooo fast!!!
Then we did a few art activities, I had little wooden fish for the kids to paint and magic water color fish paper. They turned out cute I thought!

For dessert we had dirt cake- I made mini dirt cake/fishing pails with the worms hanging out of them for the little kids and a large one for the adults and we also had cupcakes that me and the girls made together the night before with blue icing, and a pretzel and goldfish cracker made to look like a fishing pole with a fish on the end.

To end our day each family got a balloon to write Tyler a message on. Maddy was writing on her balloon and it escaped so we got her a new one. Matt gave her a marker and said, "Here you want to draw a picture for Tyler?" Maddy was so cute she said, "Yeah, I draw a boo!!!" She is all about the Disney Halloween dvd right now and anything Halloween related she calls "boo!"

Then we walked down to the end of the dock and did a balloon release, sending the balloons up to Tyler! Maddy loved the ballon release, as we walked back to the car she was telling me all about it. She said, "I balloon up, sky, I bye-bye!"

I cant say that the day went perfectly cause it was a little unorganized and crazy at times but it was still a fun day and I feel so thankful for all our friends and family that were there to remember Tyler along with us.