Happy 4th, Second Birthday... Party Crashers

I stayed up WAY too late... and not even for a good reason. I stayed up simply because I had coffee too late and wasn't feeling tired. I should have at least tried to go to sleep, but instead I watched TV, painted my nails, made a tutu for Evelyn, played online. I only did things that were necessary at 4am... riiiiiight. Come 5:30am I finally headed upstairs for bed and I'm very grateful that Cliff let me sleep until 11am-although on any other day I would of been very annoyed at myself.

We headed up to Melissa's house to help set up and wait for the party to start. I'm so happy she had the water slide for the kids to play on. We were there for 11 hours and I think they only stopped running around it and sliding for *a bite of* lunch, dinner, and fireworks. Evelyn and T hung out in the kiddie pool splashing and playing. Grandma Debby was so wonderful, she sat there and made sure they stayed safe even though they splashed her to soaking wet.

I wanted to make sure there was plenty of things to do for the kids who didn't do the water slide so in gift bags for the kids I put crayons (I brought floor sized coloring books), bubbles, water guns, chalk, and pretties. Turns out Evelyn was the only one who didn't do the water slide and she wasn't able to use the water guns, but everyone else could! Even the big boys got in on the action, swiping guns from tables and attacking each other. Eventually it just turned into emptying water bottles on each other, but that would of happened anyway. 

We did cupcakes and presents. Evelyn wasn't very happy that we made her wait to eat while we all sang to her (she wasn't too sure about the singing) but she ate her cupcake just like me eating only the frosted top of it while leaving the cake behind. I was really proud of her for seeing all those presents all day long and never opening them until we told her she could. That was a lot of Dora paper to resist! She was so excited to get a computer and those Dora things (while playing with her backpack she out of the blue told me, "Good toy, mama. It's a good toy!"). All this good behavior and she didn't even get her nap!

It was hot enough outside that all the adults were starting to contemplate taking over the water slide, or at least sharing it. That is, until we saw Pops try to get up the 'ladder'. It's amazing how hard those things can be to climb up, I tried at O's birthday party unsuccessfully.

There was more than enough delicious food all day long. Everyone brought something to add to the feast. Melissa puts on a great spread every year and this year we had just one small change: no hot dogs or hamburgers. She made meat kabobs. That is something I hope we do every year! It was a huge hit, they flew off the plate as soon as they came off the grill!

As usual we had more fireworks that we needed. As a bonus this year the neighbors in the new house had illegals. Pretty from afar, but scary that close. Especially when they don't go up in the air as high as they are supposed to! The brothers took a back seat this year and let the teenagers put on the show. For their first year doing it solo, they did a fantastic job. We even had a dancing board finale! The brothers never did THAT before; Awesome! Ronnie and I played tourist trying to get our fancy cameras to take perfect pictures of the fireworks. I'm a little shamed to admit it, but I was a little jealous of how great his were turning out. It was a lot of fun though, and although I ran out of memory before it was finished, I did manage to capture a video of my favorite firework (4 of them actually) in action. Jack of Hearts ROCKS. However, I also learned the Big Squeeze was pretty awesome and next year I'll have to get them both again and pick my favorite then.


As usually I took more than enough photos (and I'm sure I'll be stealing some of Ronnie's as well at a later date).