Lincoln's Friend Birthday Party

I gave in and decided to throw Lincoln a birthday party with his friends this year. It was chaos, with 14 kids ages 2-5 and a couple babies, but it was a lot of fun. I like that Linc's birthday is in August, because that makes the party planning super easy. Water. We have a slide and a pool, and a couple weeks ago I found some 10 gallon buckets on sale at WalMart so I picked up a couple of those and some foam balls that soak up water when wet, and a few squirt guns. Then I rounded up every empty cool whip/sour cream/ice cream container I had, and put those outside with the water buckets. My friend and neighbor Julie, let us borrow their sandbox lid that is also a little mini pool, so we had that to play in too. I think the kids had a great time.

Lincoln was funny, he wanted to be wrapped up in his towel. I asked him if he liked his birthday party, and he said, "Yes, but I wish it was dry." I think he was a little cold. It has been raining and pretty windy earlier in the morning, and I was a little worried about the party. But the sun did come out for a lot of it, and it was still in the 70s.

Ivan givin' some lovin' to Gramma Tam

My mom and Tanner, and Ryan and Melissa, were there helping out, which I greatly appreciated, and also a few of the moms stayed too. I hope they all had as much fun as I did. :)

After about an hour, we decided to do Otter Pops and presents. I chose to do Otter Pops, because #1 we had a lot of allergies to deal with milk, eggs, nuts, and soy. And although I did find a cake recipe that would have left all those out #2 I'd already made Adelia's cake that we were going to eat later, and I didn't really want double doses of cake. The kids were just fine with Otter Pops. While eating Otter Pops, Lincoln opened his presents.

For the last thing, we brought out the pinata! It was a submarine, that Aaron and I had spent several evenings making out of cereal boxes, duct tape, paper mache, and paint. We made it just a little too strong, I think. All the kids got two good turns to whack it. And then we had to have Tanner finish it off. It took him about 20 hits to break it open. But the kids sure were excited about their prizes inside.

I love this picture of Ivan and Melissa.