Annie turned 6

Of course Ashley's party happened before I blogged about Annie's. I'm a bit behind but I finally downloaded the pictures from the camera so I'm going to post about them now.

Annie's birthday was planned in advance, invitations went out and we were ready. Her party was on her actual birthday (a rarity!) which was fun. Somehow I hadn't bought her present yet so Alex and I spent the morning in Moscow at the Dollar Store (a.k.a. birthday decor/goody bag central) and Wal-Mart. We got home in time to hang the decorations, eat lunch and have people start showing up.

As the first little expectant faces turned to look at us for entertainment I realized something. In all our planning ahead and rushing that morning, we had not planned ANYTHING to actually do with the kids once they got here. Oh Crap!

We threw a retro party complete with Musical Chairs, Duck Duck Goose, carry the cotton ball on a spoon (made that up as I went!), and one game which involves clothespins, a jar, and a chair. I thought this last game was a standard for EVERYONE growing up since we played it at what seems like every birthday party growing up. (In all fairness we might have only played it at one or two but it stuck with me and since I'm writing this, I get to decide the "truth"). One of the parents said her kids had SO much fun and wouldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day. I started to confess that we had done it totally on the fly and had NO planning and she said it obviously didn't matter. Then I told her what we did and when I said (thinking everyone played when they were little) "and the clothespin in a jar game" she looked at me all weird.

When Aiden said he'd never played it I chalked it up to him being raised by incredibly weird parents (that's another post) who kept LOTS of fun things from their kids. But Amy's parents did all kinds of strange things (swimming pools of clean giant garbage cans from the park because her dad was a ranger... it sounds better, albeit still strange, when she tells it) so I was tipped off at that point that this wasn't the most regular game ever.

Anyway, the kids had fun, Annie had a great time, and the party was good.