Grant's 5th Birthday Party

This year for Grant's 5th birthday party, we had a splash party (or water party or whatever you want to call it). I filled the backyard with water-related items and let the kids go to town. It was a bit chaotic (to be expected, yes?) but I think the kids had fun. My sister was in town for the week and was a HUGE help getting the party ready!

There were approximately one million children in my backyard but these pictures kind of look like no one showed up. I left out pictures that included other children just in case the other parents don't want their kid plastered all over my blog.

We did some beachy decorations inside and pretty much let the water toys outside be the decorations for the yard (except for some pool noodle garland I made that was so fun!).

The banner I made for Grant's first birthday!

Fun little buckets for Grant's friends to take home
(my sister did a LOT of cooking and cleaning for me
so I could sew stuff for the kiddos - thanks sister!)

I didn't have any games or anything planned for the kids, just play time. I had a slip-n-slide, a sprinkler, some beach balls to play with, water guns, and water balloons. The water balloons lasted about 5 minutes - I should have seen that coming. The slip-n-slide had to be repositioned about 10 times but we eventually got it working great (especially after putting some soap on it!).

I have no idea how I managed to get a picture of just
Grant going on the slip-n-slide

Sitting in one of the water gun re-fill buckets

Bubbles!

I love this beach ball sprinkler! And it's apparently quite sturdy.

The kids played for about an hour before we broke out the pinata. After going to a birthday party earlier this year that had a pinata, Grant really wanted to do one. He picked out a shark. 

So we filled it with his favorite candies...and those poor kids tried so hard to bust it open but in the end, we had to get Husband to knock it down. Which STILL didn't actually bust it. So he tore it open and dumped out the candy...ha!

We did presents and cake after the pinata.

He got a real pair of cowboy boots from Gramma
& Grandpa so he put on his hat to go with them

Telling an animated story of dragons blowing
fire after eating spicy tacos

Really not sure what this was about...maybe cake.

Cake. Grant wanted a shark cake (his favorite birthday activity is looking at cake pictures to figure out what he wants me to make) and he picked one that was supposed to have the shark standing up but that didn't happen. I think he loved it anyway.

3 layers of chocolate cake

Happy Birthday, Grant!

Would you believe he ate the cake this year?? We went from Grant wanting a cake, to Grant wanting ice cream sundaes, back to cake because he decided he loves cake  - which I didn't believe for a minute. I don't know how much he ate at the party, but we still have some leftovers and he's actually eating it. It only took 5 years :)

Grant put on a little show for us after his friends left:

(Currently, he's asking to be a country singer for Halloween)

And he kind of continued the party while we were cleaning up. We turned the slip-n-slide back on and Grant kept up the fun while we cleaned up the yard (and picked up what must have been thousands of pieces of balloon). 

Grant had such an awesome time! I'm so glad his friends could come play and celebrate with him!

High Five for Friday

Hi! Today I'm linking up Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week. 

1) I got home Friday evening and sitting on the counter was the Mother's Day present Grant made me at school. He called it his "grass head" and it was a great thing to come home to after a very trying week.

2) So much going on in this picture:

This is how cowboy Iron Man watches TV.

3) On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of Grant's school friends. So much fun! It's always fun to watch him interact with his friends and it was nice to visit with parents. And the birthday boy's mom had some super fun stuff planned for the kids and I totally want to steal her ideas in a couple months :)

Sack races! 

Pinata!

4) Sunday was Mother's Day! I woke up to cards and presents (some cookbooks I wanted!) and then we had brunch/lunch with my in-laws (I tried chicken & waffles for the first time and it was life changing). Then we spent the rest of the afternoon quietly at home. It was a really nice day.

I always love the cards Grant makes me at school!

Mmmmm...

I snapped this pic on Mother's Day too. He was watching TV
like that and it made me laugh so hard. I'm so lucky to be this boys Mama!

5) I completed two sewing projects last weekend! Another blanket (requested by my mother-in-law for a friend of hers) and a crayon wallet that I've been wanting to try out. I was so excited that they both turned out well!

6) I had to stay home with Grant one day this week (sinus infection but he's feeling much better) and he was jazzed when he found out Grandpa was coming over to fix our broken dryer. Grandpa was very patient with Grant's desire to help and he got our dryer fixed! Woohoo! Being without a dryer isn't fun. We had to rush off to Grant's doctor's appointment right after and followed that up with some ice cream for the patient. This was a sick day Grant didn't mind in the least!

Grandpa's little helper

Ice cream lover

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Saturday we took Grant to his first Easter egg hunt! It's always my intention to go but then we're busy or he's sick or whatever. But not this year. The parks near our house have fun things planned throughout the year and they do an egg hunt every year (right across the street from where I took Grant to Trick-or-treat the Trails). They have some fun stuff set up for kids to do for a couple hours and some local people set up booths then at noon they turn the kids loose on the eggs!

When we were walking over to the event we saw a firetruck on display. Firetrucks are one of the things that excite Grant to no end but the boy was on a mission. We had planned to meet a few of his friends out here and he was not to be distracted from finding them.

His "humor mama with a sort of smile while I try to
continue looking for my friends" face.

No boy can resist the opportunity to climb inside a firetruck!

When I saw the amount of people at this thing I figured the odds of finding anyone we planned to meet out there were very slim. And I was very wrong. We managed to find 2 of the 3 families in about 5 minutes (never found the 3rd but they may not have made it) and Grant was so excited to play with his friends!

Checking out the slide with one of his friends.

They had some of this inflatable stuff for the kids to play on and I
think Grant could have stayed on this one all day!

And the rest of the time before the egg hunt started was pretty much just boys being boys running around. 

I absolutely love watching him interact with his friends.

"Come look at the eggs!"

There was a brief pause in the running around for a photo op with Raphael (who acted surprised at Grant being dressed like Michaelangelo and Grant loved it!).

We made our way over to the bubble machine and the boys just ran around popping bubbles until it was time for eggs.

Kids love bubbles!

We made our way to the field where the eggs were with about 15 minutes to go. They had taken down the fencing and I was AMAZED that not one kid made a move toward the eggs until it was time. 

Waiting patiently for the signal...

The Easter Bunny comes to tell them it's go-time...

And they're off!

It went really quick! I'd say in about 5 minutes there was not an egg to be seen. At one point Grant broke an egg and he just left his bucket out there and ran over to Husband with the broken egg because he didn't want to leave it. They didn't allow parents for this age group out on the field so, of course I go into protective-mom-mode and get worried someone will take Grant's eggs (he was so excited about this, it would have made him so sad if he left with no eggs). So I'm standing behind the line yelling over the noise "Grant! Get your bucket! Don't leave your bucket!" I'm sure I looked like a maniac (and for no reason because no one touched his stuff). But he had a good time and was very excited about the eggs he found! I'm so glad we got to go this year.