It's an Octopus Birthday!

Happy third birthday to Leila Raine!!! She's been looking forward to her birthday since the day after Christmas. Around that time, she was also busy talking about being an octopus for Halloween. I tried to explain to her the fixed nature of the calendar's holiday schedule, to no avail. Eventually I suggested that she have an octopus birthday party. (No one seems to understand the genesis of the octopus obsession, but it's a very vivid one.) Once the decision was made, every day was filled with anticipation for her birthday party; this went on for a month and got more intense with each passing day. Thank god, yesterday was the big day!

Below, some of the octopus/under-the-sea decorations....

The basket of party favors -- "quadrapuses," a la Katia (thank you for your creativity, skills and love!)
The aquarium photo "booth"...
The "fishing pond"...

"Pin the leg on the octopus"...

Popo cooking up an assortment of dogs - veggie, turkey and regular [Dad, Mom... thank you for your patience and efforts in helping me pull off this party] ...
The whole wild kid crew (minus Otis)... [P.S. - They were lured to this photo opp by the promise of birthday cake. Amazing!]
Yeah... cake!


Presents... yeah!


Party favors... yeah!
And, Leila's super rad super-hero cape (that matches the cape of her superfly homemade octopus... again, thank you Katia).

What a great birthday party! Thank you to all! And especially, thank you to Leila for being such an amazing daughter!