Birthday Extravaganza!

Is it terrible to say that I'm glad January is almost over!? It really has been a fun month but it's been BUSY! I've been planning the girls' birthday party for over a month now, hemming and hawing on whether I should even have it in the first place. Once invites go out, there's no turning back. So I figured I'd send out the invites and get my butt in gear. Birthday parties can be hard to plan. You don't want to over plan and have every second filled, but at the same time, you don't want tons of down time and have kids be bored. I pretty much filled every second but made sure I was flexible in case things didn't go according to plan. From what people told me, the party was a ton of fun. Of course no one would come up and say "hey this party sucks!" Although I'm sure my mom would and she didn't, so I'll believe that it was fun!

 

The girls were super excited. We had both sides of our families coming, which is already a lot of people, then we invited some families from our church. Overall, I think there were close to 60 people!

 

M mom and I spent a couple hours up at the church the day before making these tissue paper pompoms and that giant balloon banner. Curse Pinterest... no just kidding, but seriously, there are just too many good ideas on there!

 

We started out the party with some games, the first being group pictionary. Everyone divides into teams and sends up one person, who then has to run back and draw the word or phrase I just told them. The team with the most points gets a prize.  

 

We set up this giant play house so kids could color on it if there did happen to be down time. 

 

Uncle Chris did an awesome job making balloon animals for all the kids! And yes, I made him take of that ridiculously scary mask. 

 

 

We played a relay game where the kids had to pass the balloon over their heads, then under their legs. This game didn't work too well if you were wearing a big princess dress. oh well, live and learn. 

 

We tried to get all the kids into a group picture. These were the best two out of the ten I took:) 

 

We had to play Ava's favorite game: LIMBO! 

 

After some games and coloring, we ate lunch: chicken strips, salad, and pizza.

 

Then we sang Happy birthday and ate cake and ice cream. 

After all the food, it was sort of a free-for-all. Chris was making balloon animals, my lovely friend and my lovely sister-in-law, Katie and Tara, painted faces, the kids played pin the nose on the clown, and colored the club house. It was a very fun and eventful morning!

 

The girls received so many wonderful gifts! They were so excited. It was like Christmas morning all over again! We're so grateful for so many friends and such an amazing family that was so generous to our girls.

 

The day wasn't over yet. We took two of our nieces, Nevada and Alyssa, to downtown Rochester for their Fire and Ice festival. It was a lot of fun. There are plenty of ice sculptures. There was a toboggan run, an ice skating rink, and a bunch of huge piles of snow for the kids to play on. We sipped hot chocolate and watched some fireworks. It was a great end to a fun-filled day!

 

OH yeah, the girls also had their cousins spend the night, so added bonus of a sleepover!