Luca’s 3rd Birthday
If you know me, you know I love any excuse to host and celebrate. And my most favourite things to celebrate are our kid’s birthdays. Given the pandemic, we have already done two years of socially distant, ‘scavenger hunt,’ birthday parade, and drive-by style parties. I’m over it. Now that restrictions are reduced and people are vaccinated, we opted to have our friends and family gather to celebrate Luca’s 3rd Birthday together, in person! It was especially special because it was our first time hosting a real party in our new home!
I am all about the 'theme’ when it comes to celebrations and I couldn’t pass up a ‘Luca’ theme. Given that the movie was released this summer, I wanted to loosely theme the party around the movie and have an Italian theme, complete with Vespas, pizza, and pasta- all the best Italian imports ;). We ordered all the bright and colourful decorations through my favourite Canadian party boutique- A Little Confetti Shop. Kristin curates the cutest party decor and collections. The cutlery, cake plates, napkins, cups, balloon arch, and banner were all from her shop! If you are looking for an aesthetic, Pinterest-worthy party, you will have no problem finding what you are looking for on her site. And, if you don’t know what direction to take an upcoming party, scroll her store for a few minutes and you’ll find so much inspo!
Luca’s favourite thing is jumping and dancing, so we opted to rent a bouncy house from The Backyard. We actually had Luca’s second birthday party at The Backyard and they were just so accommodating and easy to work with that we decided to bring their bouncy houses to our house! They had lots of options to choose from to fit different spaces. Our backyard is mostly occupied by the pool, so we set the party up out front, on the driveway. I knew the adults and kids would enjoy an inflatable basketball shoot game, so we rented one of those as well. And sure enough, both the bouncy house and basketball games were huge hits at the party! We extra lucked out because it was the most gorgeous late September day, with a high of 25 degrees!
The other party hit was definitely the Mopeds we rented from The Boutique on Broadway. Garrett and I had rented them for a date night this summer and had way too much fun that we knew we had to bring the fun to Luca’s party- even if it was only for the adults. Not only did the mopeds tie in the Italian theme and serve as the cutest decor, they were also a blast and soon enough there were races and tricks going down on the mopeds. We kept it safe though, don’t worry ;)
After all that jumping, hoop shooting, and riding dirty on the mopeds, we obvi worked up some serious appetites, and you know we had that good good. A party is only as good as it’s food and luckily we had that covered. YXE Style & Graze hit us with the most amazing charcuterie style grazing boards. One was geared more towards the little ones, and the other was for the grown ups. Both were crowd pleasers forsure and tasted just as good as they looked. We had our good friends at Congress and 13 Pies cater the main course. As I mentioned before, the Italian theme tied into the menu and all of the salad, pastas, and pizzas were* chef’s kiss * way too good, plus they are all of Luca’s most favourite foods! I used to try to make the food from scratch for parties but quickly learned that I would rather be out mingling and enjoying the party I am throwing, than in the kitchen, stressing over the stove.
My mother-in-law is a baking queen and our kids are so lucky that she always bakes their birthday cakes! Come to think of it, I’m even luckier that I don’t have to do the baking haha. We went with a beachy themed, blue ombre cake, as a nod to the Luca sea monsters, without being a full-on Luca cake. You feel me? It turned out perfect (as usual), plus it’s dairy, egg, and nut-free (also vegan), so allergy friendly for the birthday boy. And for the final sugar kick, we sent our guests home with candy from The Shoppe. It was the perfect alternative to a traditional ‘treat bag,’ and I would highly recommend it for your next event. They even include the display cases which bring the wow factor.
Overall, it was a great party. Luca felt oh so special and all the guests had a great day. What more could you ask for? He’s requested a Mario theme party for next year so I’m already brainstorming ideas to make it fashion. Stay tuned ;)
XO KK
