Lena's Third Birthday Party

To celebrate Lena turning three we decided to bring all of our friends and family to the Santa Ana Zoo (where we have a family membership) for a Rio 2 themed birthday party!  Lena still loves animals and has recently become addicted to the Rio movies. 

Part of Lena's Party Invite

We rented a party area called "The Amazon" because it is surrounded by tropical trees and next to a huge waterfall.  (Bummer that the waterfall wasn't working on the day of her party though!)  It was so fun to have a birthday party in such a jungle-like environment without having to decorate much!

Our family birthday picture

 My mom made this amazing jungle/Rio/zoo themed birthday cake and it definitely was a hit with Lena and the kids

Grandma's impressive Rio cake

Lena just couldn't take her eyes off her cake!

Can you tell she loves it?

I bought some foam parrots from the Oriental Trading Company for table decorations along with blue table cloths and burlap runners that I recycled from her first birthday party.  For food we decided to do a simple picnic with uncrustable sandwiches for the kids and Costco croissont sandwiches for the adults, along with grapes, chips, and I also made Lena's favorite cookies- caramel refrigerator cookies.

Some of the many cousins that came to celebrate with Lena.

Lunch with Daddy

We did a coloring contest with printouts of characters from Rio 2 and Lena picked her favorites. We also did our traditional pinata which was filled with pencils, stamps, airplanes, and few other goodies.

The cousin/friend pinata line up from shortest to tallest!

Lena picking her favorite picture in the coloring contest.

Lena received such wonderful gifts from her family and friends but Grandma's stuffed "Blue" was Lena's favorite.  After the party our guests got to explore the zoo and ride the minature train and carosel with their party favor ride tickets.  Dan and I agreed that it was our most favorite party yet!

Lena gets her "Blue" from Grandma

Lena always loves to play on this monkey statue at the front of the zoo.