TBnJ

Yesterday was T & J's sixth birthday party. We held it at a park about five minutes from our house (Springwoods Park). There is a large covered pavilion with tons of picnic tables and lots of space. It really works well for parties. It's our third party there!

J selected a ladybug theme, and T selected a dinosaur theme. J blew out all her candles in one breath, completely amazing herself. The stunned look on her face when she managed to do it was priceless. T hasn't figured out yet he shouldn't put the candles so far apart! Of course, I told Daddy-o to get out five candles each and let them put them on the cakes themselves. Daddy-o pointed out that they are SIX and need six candles each. I knew that. Really, I did.

The weather forecast was for 30% chance of thunderstorms, and we had several guests come from areas of town with pouring rain. However, it was completely dry at the park where we were. There was a lot of humidity and heat, but it was bearable, especially with all the shade in the park. However, I also had a lot of crafts and games planned in case it did pour rain since the back up plan was to party under the pavilion.

We had large full body outlines of T, B and J that we had traced the night before. The kids got to color those in, and we'll hang them in their rooms. We made ladybug hats and dinosaur marionettes. There were also rattles to create: toilet paper tubes with dinosuar or ladybug pictures to color and attach and then beans to stuff inside.

One of the more popular things to do was the bean bag toss games that Daddy-o fashioned out of plywood and I cut out of posterboard. I made bean bags out of fabric to match the gift bags, and then T and J helped me stuff them with dried lentils. Yes, real bean bags.

We also had a bunch of cooking spoons and a bunch of large sized plastic Easter eggs. These were supposed to be dinosaur eggs for an egg relay race. That never happened in a formal fashion, but a bunch of the kids were having fun running around with the eggs on the spoons.

We had a dinosaur hunt after doing cake and juice. I bought a bunch of little plastic dinosaurs, and we scattered them throughout a rocky and grassy area next to the pavilion. Most websites suggest a dinosaur "dig" where you bury the dinosaurs in sand and let the kids excavate. But the sand volleyball pit was pretty far from the pavilion, so we decided just to hunt for dinosaurs. The kids had fun doing that anyway. And then a parent located a patch of poison ivy near the dinosaur hunt. Hopefully no one got zapped by it!

J also wanted to do the limbo at the party. So we brought a CD player and a broom stick and the kids took over. We had a three year old decide he was going to help hold the stick in the middle, which doesn't work too well. Then the six and seven year old girl crowd started running the show, and their rules for the limbo are some of the wackiest I've ever seen. Finally an eight year old girl (going on 20) took over and enforced some standardized limbo rules. The kids seemed to have fun even if it wasn't quite the limbo most of us are used to.

And of course, when they weren't doing these loosely structured activities, the kids were on the playground. We had one girl throw up after a bit too much circular motion on the tire swing. A lot of kids also had fun climbing a tree in the park which seems to be particularly well structured for such feats.

All in all, it was a fun party. J and T were very happy to see their friends after several weeks of school being out. Today they are off on a hike at Turkey Creek Trail and then to another birthday party for a friend of J.

Labels: in Austin