Big Old Birthday Bash

This summer has obviously been a challenging one for us, especially when it came time for celebrations that usually require a house, or at least a kitchen with an oven. But I have to say that the kids' birthday parties were at least as good as they usually are, and totally low-key, which is all we know how to do!

Eli's party threatened to be a scratch due to the weather, but thankfully the sun came out around lunchtime and kept all of the rain clouds away. We gathered around the pool at 4PM and the kids swam their hearts out. When they weren't showing off their best moves on the diving board, that is. We still haven't done the formal-invite, kids-choice-of-guests thing for the birthdays yet, but our group of friends contains several kids, so it works out just fine. All in all, there were five other kids (making seven total), and more adults than that. Pizza arrived just as the lifeguard blew the whistle for adult swim and the kids swarmed. Of course they only finished about 1/2 a piece and three grapes each before the whistle blew again and they were back in. It was almost as though Eli forgot about the 'main event'.

Thirty minutes later I pulled the specialty made, variety selection of cupcakes out and once again kids were everywhere. I think we had seven choices: s'mores, peanut butter cup, mint chocolate, chocolate chip cookie, key lime, red velvet, Guiness, cookies n cream, blueberry and strawberry. Eli chose S'mores almost immediately, as I assumed he would. Maddux followed suit and they both scarfed them down in record time. Of course Maddux ended up wearing most of hers. Another thirty minutes or so of swimming later and the thunder started, so we made our way home to show the house progress to a few friends. It started to pour down while we were in the house, so I guess it's good that we left the pool when we did.

Again, I have felt a bit bad for how low-key the parties were this year, but the kids have had a blast, and looking back through the pictures makes me realize that Eli didn't miss out on anything; he was just happy to spend the day with some really great friends.