6th Birthday Party at Pump it Up 10/27/12

As many of you know, I will never be a candidate for Mother of the Year.

And I'm ok with that.

So when Michael told me he wanted his party at Pump It Up about 7 months before his actual party, he gave his mother plenty of time to plan it.

Or so he thought!

I figured 6-7 weeks prior to the party date would be enough time to book the place.

I was mistaken.

SO!  The earliest I could get at a reasonable hour was 10/27!  And honestly, it all worked out better because Brian was in France for the 2 weekends around his birthday - so logistically, we couldn't do it then anyways.

This is what I told Michael and I rationalize in my head to make me feel better about not booking his party in time!

Yesterday, we had Michael's party at pump it up.  We had 24 kids:

We invited Michael's whole class from school and invited older siblings of the families we are friends with.

The kids had a blast and us adults too!  I raced another mom friend through their gauntlet.  It was SUPER fun!  I love seeing which of my friends like to do crazy stuff (I know - pump it up bouncy houses - super crazy right?) - and which friends prefer to sit out and watch.

Anyways, Michael loved being the center of attention:

He picked out a Backyardigans cake!  So cute!  I LOVE Giant's cakes by the way.  I am all about outsourcing that for birthday parties - no more elbow deep in buttery/sugary icing for me anymore.  I will be spending my time on the goodie bags and party theme accessories!  That's way more fun!

Michael's theme choice went from Legos to Star Wars to Legos to Angry Birds to Star Wars to Legos.

And he finally chose the Backyardigans days before his birthday.  OH WELL!  :)    I used the bags I was going to use as Lego treat bags anyways and was inside secretly thankful I did not have to punch out 6 - 1" diameter circles for EACH bag to adhere on there to look like lego. ;)

Michael had a great time with all of his friends and the kids and adults alike were all laughing and screaming.  I loved getting to know some more of the parents from Michael's class and it was nice to all get together.  They will be together for the next 8 years anyways!

I will be posting an entry about Michael at age 6 soon - along with his 6 year old portraits.  They came out awesome.  I love photographing Michael because first of all, he is only ONE kid.  And he's a kid that understands directions and will do what you say!  Plus, he's my kid so I took about 20 pictures of him and about 12-14 are keepers.  Gotta love that!

I should be editing pictures, but I am just not!

Thursday Digging

On Thursday, we started preparing for our Friday jumping in the leaves playdate with some of michael's friends from school.

Michael felt the priority was getting the trick or treat sign put into place.  I am going to have to say he prioritizes like his Daddy.  I was busy raking the leaves for the leaf jumping playdate.

He was totally quiet for a while, which always makes me worry.  I found him like this, concentrating very diligently at his work:

He dug a 1 ft wide and 1 ft deep hole for that sign on a stake.  Hmmm....

Had a great time though looking for worms!

So I wasn't about to discourage him from the rather excessive work for a little sign!  He was having so much fun picking them up and moving them to other places.  He filled in the hole after putting the sign up.  Mommy helped hold it up for him to finish!

Then we ran off to rake many large piles of leaves! Super fun!

We had the playdate on Friday, 10/26, with friends from school and they had a great time!  What I love is that they are all such good kids.  Very respectful and well mannered, one of the reasons we send him where we do.  Everyone is expected to have good manners and be respectful and kind to others.

Anyways - we had a fantastic time and plan to do it once a month with this same group, rotating houses!  :)