Year 5 Party

I had so much fun at my nieces' fifth birthday party!  We tried to cram in every fun birthday activity imaginable, minus a magic show.  Maybe next year, I can talk Jamie into learning some magic tricks.... Not that the kids would have the stamina for it.  I tried hard to make sure everyone was well sugared the entire day, so they could keep up their energy for all the frivolity, but despite regular infusions of cup cakes, birthday cake, ice cream cones, juice boxes, and campfire smores, by ten o'clock, the kids had partied so hard that they were exhausted and waving surrender before we even got a chance to watch the animated movie planned as the party finale, like we did last year.  That's okay, I watched it the next day without them! 

My nieces and nephew were there, as were four of their friends.  Seven kids didn't sound like that many until they were all there running around, and then if felt like there were dozens of kids!  We played the balloon game, which is fun for the adults because we get to watch the kids do silly things to win a prize.  Jamie and I thought up goofy tasks, mostly involving mimicking funny looking or sounding animals, and wrote these on strips of paper inside the balloons.  The kids got to pop the balloons, which seems to be the best part, and then perform the tasks to get fun prizes, like fake mustaches or princess wands.  

I thought it was great that my little pool was absolutely filled with children.  As hot as it was, I didn't get in with them during the first round because I didn't think there was room for me in all that splashing!  It was pool chaos!  By the evening, when I was melting, my sister-in-law and I sneaked into the pool for a few moments of calm and cool floating before the kids spied us and we became immersed in a game of whirlpool and floaty bombardment.  It was intense, but awesome.  

When they were done splashing in the pool, they gave the lawn a good watering as they played in the sprinkler.  My sprinkler has colored balls that go rolling down the outside and get shot into the air by the water.  This looked like fun to me, but it seems that the kids had the most fun sticking their heads in the spray were the ball comes out.  Maybe that's one of those things you have try before you can understand the appeal?  

Once the sun stopped blaring, the adults played corn hole while the kids played chase in the garden.  I overhead them saying they were "running in the maze", which seems like a pretty good way to describe my arrangement of raised beds.  

The hot dogs and pulled pork were nearly depleted by the end of the day, but fortunately unfortunately, there were left over cup cakes and ice cream, which means I have to eat a little every day to make room in my freezer, right?