Kyle's Birthday Party

This year for Kyle's Birthday we had a Pirate themed party at a park near our house. It's the boys favorite park to go to because the play ground is huge. It has 5 or 6 slides, a rock climbing area, swings, and all kinds of other things to keep them busy.

I went to the park with Cameron at 8:30 to set up. The party wasn't starting until 10:00 so I thought that would be plenty of time to get a good table and get all set up. When I got there, the parking lot was full, (I had to park in a handicapped space to unload my stuff,) and all of the shaded tables had been reserved by some bicycle marathon group. I quickly unloaded all of my stuff onto the last two tables at the park and called Gregg to get the Easy-Up out of storage on his way so that we would have some shade.

In the end it worked out just fine, it was a beautiful day and we ended up closer to the playground.
The kids who came to the party ranged in age from 13 down to infant. The park had something for everyone to do. Carter and Kyle were thrilled to have so many of their friends and cousins to play with. They were practically buzzing.

It was nice to be able to hang out and catch up with our friends and family while the kids were off playing with each other.
Some of our friends that came to the party were people we only get a chance to see a few times a year on a special occasion like a birthday so it was fun to have everyone together and relax.


In years past I have been busy "hosting" the birthday parties. This year I was able to really just


enjoy my kids, friends, and family. We may never have another birthday party at our house ever again. (Thank you Brad and Carroll for the great idea!) Clean up was a breeze too. Roll up the disposable table clothes, take down the Easy-Up, throw the cooler and gifts in the Suburban, and go!

After lots of swinging, sliding, and running around, we did a Pinata. The youngest kids went first for obvious reasons. The all did well hitting it, but none of them got close to breaking it open. Even the "big boys" couldn't break it. Gregg finally had to step in and give it a few good whacks to get the candy out. When I asked Carter later what his favorite part of the day was, he said, "when Daddy killed the pinata and got my candy for me!" Apparently it was a hit, no pun intended. ;-)

We sang Happy Birthday and Kyle tried to blow out his candle, but he was pretty tired and couldn't quite get it so Carter stepped in and took care of it for him. Kyle didn't care at all. He was just happy to have a long awaited cupcake.
He even helped himself to a second one while I was taking pictures. When I asked him what his favorite part of the day was he said, "Cupcakes!!" It was a fun party and a great day. Thank you to all of our friends and family who came to our little shindig and for everyone who brought or sent gifts to Kyle. He LOVES ALL of them and so does his older brother!