We Had A Ball!

Yesterday was the Boy's birthday bash. Instead of herding toddlers, I invited their whole families and made it a BBQ. Then a cold front moved in and I started to get nervous. Saturday morning dawned a little cloudy but sunny. By the time we were setting up the tables, it was actually getting pretty nice outside.

Of course the morning starts with an emergency. It wouldn't be my life if something didn't go horribly wrong at the last minute. The previous night, my chivalrous husband helped me unload all the groceries from the car. He was also slightly medicated due to allergies and thus, forgot to close the sliding door. So when he headed to the garage this morning to pick up the balloons for the party, he was stopped in his tracks. The battery was dead. And his little car was too small for all the balloons. Luckily (now, anyway), our last car had a habit of draining it's battery so we had invested in a battery charger, which saved the day.

Now the party can start! When guests arrived, we sent the kids out into the back to play. The theme of the party was balls. Couldn't you tell from the cake and the title? There were about a dozen normal-sized playground balls and then one gigantic beach ball. It was almost as big as da Boo! I should have taken a picture of her with it.

The kids are having a great time playing with the balls and our next door neighbor (also at the party) let them use her little playhouse. The moms are inside helping me with food stuff and the dads are gathered around the grill, grunting and making non-sensical comments about propane and raw meat.

There were no organized games. Toddlers don't play musical chairs and they don't take turns. I did fill a tumbler-style thingy with peanut M&Ms, then the adults guessed how many there were inside. The answer? 307.

We start grilling. Burgers and hot dogs. Didn't even grill veggies. In fact, since I can't stand potato salad, I asked someone else to bring it! :)

There was also a strawberry caesar salad, fruit salad (with melon BALLS), lots of different chips, and several bowls of candy. And a vat of lemonade.

Food is served and everyone seems happy enough, munching away. This is Aunt Denise, keeping an eye on the Boy while I ran around like a crazy woman, making sure everyone was having the time of their lives before I got my hamburger.

After food comes THE CAKE! The Boy got to practice blowing out candles stuck in a mini cake on his actual birthday so he knew just what to do when I started to light the candle. He was a little too eager...a friend had to cover his mouth so he would stop blowing out the flame before the candle was lit! We ended up singing to him first and then lit the candle for him to blow out.

After cake comes the presents! The Boy was getting a little too distracted with each gift, wanting to play thoroughly with everything before moving on. Luckily, toy manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, have made the packaging around the toy virtually impossible to remove. While the parents are wrestling with the heavy-duty, steel wiring that holds the plastic toy firmly to the metal-enforced cardboard, the toddler loses interest and will then select the next package to tear to pieces. And da Boo got to help.

In their goodie bags, older kids got a porcupine ball, a dog ball, a tangle ball, and a punch ball. Ball theme, remember? And then there were sixlets, dum dums, and mini Reese's PB cups. Since there were several babies there, I let them take home one of the playground balls.

It was pretty fun! Afterwards, while the Man was showing da Boo how to play with the Wii, I took a nap. Wanna help clean up?