Party Day

After putting a tremendous amount of time and energy stressing about the weather, illness, whether Jadyn would nap and other things beyond my control Jake's 4th birthday party at the park was a major success. If I were to have any complaints, I would have to say I only wish I would have gotten more pictures but keeping 12 kids between 3-5 years old entertained is pretty time consuming as it is!!!

After checking out the new playground (which many of his guests had never been to) and racing around the perimeter on bikes and scooters, we descended to the covered picnic area decorated in NASCAR theme complete with a #9 Kasey Kahne cake that the guest of honor picked out himself. We immediately moved from cake and ice cream to opening gifts, during which Jake delighted in new Speed Racer toys, a video game, Thomas train set, remote control monster truck and the game Hungry Hungry Hippos just to name a few. We then moved on to the games, which I had tried to keep with the theme. So first we played Pin the Car on the Race Track, which was a huge hit, followed by hot potato played with plastic race car. Although the parents got a kick out of it and thought the kids did fine, I think they might have needed to be a bit older for that one. We finished off with a race car pinata, which everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Jake's cousin Aidan, although one of the younger ones there, definitely won an award for having such an awesome swing. We finished off the party with Jake helping me pass out Pit Crew duffel goody bags and thanking everyone for making Jake's birthday party such a memorable fun-filled afternoon.

Jake with his friend Patryck from school:

With Mommy and a few friends before singing Happy Birthday:
The cake (all the kids wanted a piece with the grass aka more frosting):
Jake trying to blow out the candles:
With a little help from his friend, he finally got the candle out, Yeah!

Here we are playing Pin the Car on the Race Track. The track is compliments of my friend Ashley. Jake thought the track itself was a gift, racing his cars around the track the entire day prior to the party.
Here is cousin Aidan whacking the pinata:
We saw this expression many times while opening gifts. He is saying, "Whoa! Cool!"
One of his favorite gifts, a Speed Racer track
With his buddy from playgroup, Andrew:

It was not until I got home and looked at the pictures that I realized Jadyn was not in a single shot. So a little ragged from the long day of play and eating cake, here she is eating the pizza I ordered when we got home, as we were way to exhausted to do anything else for dinner. .

And here is Jake playing Hungry Hungry Hippos (a game my brother Tony and I remember playing as little kids) with his cousins Madison and Ethan after dinner

Ingredients:

Take 2 exhausted parents
1 partied out birthday boy and
1 almost napless toddler sister
And what do you get?

A family that was all in bed early sleeping heartily and peacefully after a very successful birthday party

Jake seems to understand that tomorrow is his actual birthday and we will do a cupcake after dinner and have him open his presents from us. I assume it will be a bit easier to get a few more pictures with a little less commotion going on. But today was his party day: Exhausting yes but a lot of fun!