Miss A's Big Day!

If I don't blog this soon, I'll forget it all together, and it's already pretty much a blur! I don't know exactly why I was such a mess...at least not specifically.
The morning started out well enough. We all had French Toast and strawberries for breakfast. I did have a fleeting question of, "should I be sitting here right now enjoying a leisurely breakfast when I have x,y,z and a-g that I should be doing??"!
HA!
That question was quickly answered!!!

While Jason got busy with mowing, etc. I began tying up loose ends around the house and with party things. Putting together prize buckets, situating the different game activities and paraphernalia, doing one last vacuum and floor sweep, etc.
WHAT among these things took so much of my time, I do not know! It must have been just everything put together.
Jason had to go to Lowe's after weed eater string, and then the corner store for gas.
Finally we were ready to put together stuff in the backyard. We had the ticket booth to secure, games to set up, and the flag pennant entrance and strings of balloons to tie up. Thank goodness we'd done the animals the day before!
Halfway through putting up the "tent" (a plastic tablecloth stapled to the top of the playscape and angled down to the fence), the wind picked up pretty good, and we realized it was not going to work. The thin plastic ripped right out of the staples and pretty much went flying. I made a frantic call to Grammy, who was basically killing time before the party. She grabbed a white sheet at Walmart and headed this way. We got it up in no time, it was going to work fine, we strung the balloons on there, and she set to work on rolling pigs in a blanket, popping popcorn, and setting up nacho stuff. At this time, I already had the girls frosting cupcakes (seriously!) and adding the cut apart marshmallows to make a popcorn effect on top.

I jumped in the shower about 20 min. before party time and had wet hair when our
first guests arrived. Lovely.

Anyway, the kids got busy checking out the back yard. We had a "knock-over-the-cups" game, a homemade juggler bean bag toss, a clown standee for the kids to put their face through for a cute photo-opp (also homemade!), scarf juggling, a "ducks-in-the-pond" game, face painting, and a balloon animal making station. Not to mention the playscape and trampoline!

Ahhh, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention my masterpiece, the piece de resistance....the obstacle course.
This was my baby. The event I was most proud of. I had borrowed lots of props from a very good friend, and had the neatest stuff set up.

It all began with the first child pulling on a pair of oversized clown pants and suspenders, and filling them with a few balloons. Add a red nose and clown wig, and they were to run to the fence and back, then switch to the burlap sack and hop back to the fence again. After that, they grab the sparkly cane and top hat and walk across the little buckets in a row (to be a tight rope). Then jump through the "Rings of Fire!" (hula hoops on stands) and crawl through the tunnel. Next, up the ladder and down the slide and we all meet up on the parachute for a fun game.
Sounds great, right??

WRONG!

ONE kiddo was willing to try all this stuff and actually made his way through the activities. Then he sat on the parachute for TEN minutes waiting for the next big thing......

It never came.

The rest of the kiddos were completely confused, and the birthday girl was just plain over it!
I will say that most of the kids warmed up and did at least one or two parts of the course once they caught on. :-)

And we went to cupcakes next so all was well.

I guess it's a good party when you end up with one in the pool (wink!)

And...I managed to remember the big "Pie-in-the-face!" finale when there were a whopping 4 friends left at the party. Oh well, live and learn!
Enjoy the show!