Tiffany Olsen Photography

This year for Lola’s third birthday, we did a Library/Vintage Book theme, based on a vintage Little Golden Book called, appropriately, Happy Birthday.

Reading books together is one of Lola’s favorite things, so I wanted to capture that about her little…errr, big, personality right now. She often requests the same book several nights in a row and then will “read” it back to me. As an English teacher, I know how critical regular reading from an early age is to development and language skills throughout life, so I love that this is something she enjoys so much.

Using the 1952 Little Golden book as the basis of the theme, I got some decorations that fit in the color scheme from my favorite of all time, Target, along with Party City, and local gem, Handpicked Goods.

The stars of the theme were homemade cupcakes I made and decorated with homemade frosting in the color scheme, topped with edible children’s book covers from Etsy shop, Botanical Sugar Flour and ridiculously delicious and pretty macaron cookies from local shop, Sonder Bakehouse that fit perfectly with the theme.

We played two games that Grandpa Mark especially seemed to enjoy that fit with the children’s book theme. One was an Emoji Pictionary of book titles that I found online and the other I made using several examples from Sporcle of children’s book titles by synonyms. These games had us in stitches, and even Lola was hard at work guessing the Emoji ones.

This was the first year that Lola really understood that it was her birthday and had been looking forward to her party. Since they celebrate with treats and singing “Happy Birthday” at daycare, she was well aware of the process and had been playing birthday party for a few months before her birthday arrived, setting up the table with her blankie as a tablecloth, her little lap desk as a serving tray, complete with play food and her tea set, and then we’d sing happy birthday. It was so fun to see her so excited, knowing all of her family members were there for her. The next morning when she woke up, she looked around and asked, “Where are all my people? Where are all my cousins?”

While we at least remembered to get a photo of the three of us on my phone, once again, she was so busy and the day went so fast that I didn’t get photos of her with her guests, other than Auntie Amy, since she got quite shy when it came time to blow out her candles and insisted that Amy help her with it.

We’re so grateful for our little lady. Happy birthday, Lola!