Gwen is 3

Gwen Gwen, or Kitty, or Fastest Runner, as she likes to be called is the sweetest little angel...and I do mean angel! She has the most perfectly curly, naturally highlighted blond hair, chunky cheeks and perfectly round belly and tushy from anyone else I know! She's always so silly with her little games and names she wants to be called. She still just likes to sit back and watch things and not lead too much, but she has SUCH an imagination. She makes up songs and stories all the time. The best is she'll say thank you without being prompted all the time (she's so polite). She's super shy, but so was I so I'm not surprised at all. I'm also amazed to say she didn't really have "terrible twos", at least not nearly as bad as other kids or Cara (and Cara wasn't really bad either). I constantly forgot she was 2, honestly, she's so much smarter for her age and so much more mature, I can tell she's brilliant and will continue to be. I absolutely love you to the moon and back and then some!

For her birthday this year we planned to go to Nickel City and have fun in the arcade. We planned to order her cake from Coldstone and food from the arcade. We booked the party a month or so in advance so everything was set. Then the week leading up to her birthday I realized I had forgotten to get her a gift so I had one planned for Christmas that I could get at the closest store that I figured worked for her birthday. I didn't wrap it very well and it just felt like everything got chaotic right before her birthday. The night before her party we went to order the cake, but found out it was too late and we couldn't get one in time for her party. We made a backup plan we'll just have to grab one from the store and have them decorate it and call it good (boring, but like she'll know the difference).I kept telling Larry at least we had the big party booked and had informed people in time so it should be a good turn out. 

Flash Forward to today, we booked the party for 5:00, but decided to head to the arcade early so the girls could play for a while before the party started. We got to the front and mentioned we were there for Gwen's party. The guy looked at his party papers and said he didn't see one for Gwen. We were so confused so I had Larry pull up the confirmation email and show the guy. He mentioned they don't send confirmation emails and took a look at it and pointed out that it was for a Nickel City in Illinois...which does us absolutely no good. He also mentioned all their party rooms were booked so he couldn't get us in either way.

Well we figured we'd at least pay to get everyone in, let them play and then just celebrate in their sitting area for food (it's separate from the arcade) and just make the most of it. We left the cake in the car (it felt cold enough that it should be okay). Well around 4:30 I went to go order the pizzas (the guy said they just needed about 20 minutes to make a few pizzas) and when the guy looked at the pizza area, he said they were completely out. I was shocked! This was a Saturday, when they are open until midnight, and they are just out of pizza? They didn't have any other food options besides ice cream so I didn't understand how they planned to operate the rest of the night without this. We couldn't have a party at dinner time without any food so I told Larry we needed to plan to move the party elsewhere.

Unfortunately, on a Saturday regular restaurant can't accommodate such large parties so we ended up at Pizza Pie Cafe. Not bad, since it had a lot of options, and we lucked out when we got there that they had a couple large tables next to each other that we could fit everyone in. Unfortunately, I found out right after we got there that another large group had reserved that area, but since they hadn't put up signs the other group just had to find other tables. I felt bad we got their reservation, but it wasn't something we did intentionally, so we made the most of it. 

Only pic from her actual party

We were luckily able to get food, open gifts, sing her the birthday song (in fact, everyone in the whole area was singing to her, even people who didn't know us...I thought that was sweet), and have cake so it worked out. It was just extremely stressful and annoying. When we got home tonight we went to figure out why our reservation went to the wrong place and realized when you google Nickel City, the main one in Illinois is the first one to come up, you have to click the link for Nickel City Orem! So now Larry has to try and get the deposit we put down back. 

In the end, all she'll remember is that she had a good birthday and I doubt she'll really remember her 3rd birthday party. We plan to have 1:1 dates next weekend with her so IF she remembers anything, hopefully it's that. At the very least we have a bunch of Nickel City cards to play with so that's a win.