Yesterday was a much anticipated, planned for, and talked about day: Ali and Logan's first friend birthday party! I think the three hours between when I told them "Today's your birthday party day," and when the friends actually arrived may have been the longest three hours of their lives:) Here Ali is showing off how the balloons for the mailbox would make an equally fine hat:
The party theme was Holidays, and as part of that theme the kids were invited to come in costume. This theme evolved from the fact that we bought Logan his Halloween costume for this year the day after Halloween last year-a Spiderman Costume. And he has mentioned how excited he is to wear it about twice a day since we bought it. I thought as a reward for his patience and excitement, we could have a costume party and let him wear it to that too. They put on their costumes first thing in the morning, and I was quite surprised that Logan kept the mask on for a good two hours before deciding that it really was kind of hot with it on, and that he really could see/hear/breathe better without it on:
Ali is not quite as into dressing up as Logan is, so she went back and forth on what she wanted to wear to the party. She finally decided on a butterfly outfit from the costume box. In the two hours before the party, bits of the costume came off: first the crown, then the wand, then the wings, and finally about 10 minutes before the party started the skirt came off too. That's right, she wore no costume to her own costume party.
Cute buddies admiring each others' looks. Logan spent much of the morning trying to convince Ali not to be scared of him: "It's just me, Logan! I'm Spiderman and he's a good guy, Ali! Don't be scared, it's just me Logan!"
We thought it would be fun to have Eli wear his costume too, but he disagreed. Or maybe he was just trying to fly...
As always, he was happier about life once he found lovey and pacifier. But the costume came off shortly after this and never did make it back on.
The kids asked me what costume I was going to wear, so I pulled out my Poodle Skirt from the back of my closet. Ali thought it needed a hat to finish off the look. I can't tell you how much Logan loved being Spiderman. He told me again how much he loved it today and I said, "And you were the CUTEST Spiderman ever!" He responded, "No, Mom. I wasn't cute, I was COOL!" When did my kids get so big-kid sounding?
Not too surprisingly, all our cute girls came dressed as princesses (OK, one is Tinker Bell, but fairies are princess-like):
And all the boys were Super Heroes. Captain America kept on his shield the entire two hours, and Batman kept on his mask on the whole time too. Talk about commitment. I guess you never know when a bad guy might show up:)
All of our games centered on a different holiday: Valentine making, Leprechaun Says (like Simon Says), Pin the Tail on the Easter Bunny, Sparklers for the 4th of July, Toss the ball through the Jack-o-Lantern (I was supper proud of how my Jack-o-lantern turned out), and decorating a Christmas Tree shaped rice crispy treat.
The sparklers were a big hit. Poor Logan managed to burn his finger on one of his. As sad as I was about that (the poor little man carried around an ice bag the rest of his party, and in fact for the rest of the day), I was glad it was my son that got injured and not someone elses! And we thought we were being to careful!
It was so cute watching them open presents. All their friends were so excited to hand them the gifts they brought and were almost as anxious to see what the birthday kids got as Ali and Logan were. So sweet.
No big surprise, the pinata was a definite highlight. They all took turns hitting it with our little plastic bats, and then Daddy took a few turns. He managed to bend the bat before denting the pinata, so he took off his shoe and used that. The kids found that hilarious and were thrilled when it worked!
Just like when I was a kid, we gathered up all the candy and toys from the pinata, put it in a pile and then let them pick equal amounts of what they wanted.
The other big hit of the party was the scavenger hunt for the cake. This was another staple of my birthday parties as a kid, but I had to adapt it to non-readers. I drew pictures of where the next clue picture was hidden. We were searching for the cakes. They were so cute running up and down the stairs, yelling "Yay!" when someone found the clue, and being so proud to tell me when they found the cakes for me! Whew, good thing we had some good searchers or these fantastic cakes wouldn't have been eaten:)
When asked what kind of cakes they wanted Ali said a pink one and Logan said a sun one. When I asked again Ali added that hers should be a Princess cake and Logan added that his needed a road and cars. I stopped asking after that because I could see the trend going on here: more complex each time. Knowing my skills as a cake decorator are limited, I bought some decorations for the cakes. Ali's was the first to get frosted and it was a bit of a disaster since I made the frosting too runny. But it tasted good! And I kind of loved how Logan's turned out.
Aside from an injury (my kid) and several rounds of tears (also all from my kids) we had a FANTASTIC time! Ali and Logan have such fun, sweet friends and it was great to have them here with us to celebrate Ali and Logan's 4th birthday. We love Ali and Logan so much and feel SO blessed to have them as a part of our family.
