As I mentioned in my last post about all that Reaghan loves at 3 years of age, she L O V E S Moana.

Have you seen it? Reaghan was hooked after the first time she watched it and I actually enjoy it too. Which if you know me isn't that surprising because I love me some Disney movies. We listen to the songs on repeat pretty regularly and are actually headed to our local Zoo tomorrow evening because they are showing Moana on their outside screen! SO of course Reaghan's birthday had to have a Moana theme.

Do you do themed birthdays? We've kept Reaghan's parties family only up to this point, and probably will until she's 5 or so, but we still enjoy having a little theme to go along with it. Someone was selling some pretty intense Moana decorations on our facebook yard sale site (complete with a boat made out of pallets that had a sail!) that were super adorable but I realized that would be going overboard a bit. We did buy some Moana balloons, plates and napkins and then just used some dollar tree table cloths and streamers and a bouquet of carnations from the grocery store. A friend made some killer cupcakes and I had fun creating a super easy Moana cake. (That looked better than it tasted... thank goodness for the baker friends cupcakes!) I think its fun to see Reaghan excited about the decorations that we put up for her birthday. I love that it makes her day special and memorable. She is still enjoying her Moana balloons almost 2 weeks later so it was worth the money spent. : )

How do you do gifts with your kids at parties? We try to put an emphasis on the cards people place with their gifts and ensure that Reaghan looks at each person to thank them, as well as offer hugs. We make sure Reaghan takes her time appreciating each gift before moving on to the next.  We really want to cultivate a spirit of gratefulness in our girls and not entitlement! We make sure we talk about how she should receive gifts for several days leading up to the party and even practice it with her so she is prepared for how she should act. We've found that practicing situations before they happen really helps Reaghan to respond appropriately since she tends to have a shy personality. We don't want her shyness to be an excuse for being rude.