A 4th Birthday for Jacob

Jacob turned 4 yesterday. What a sweet and caring 4 year old he is. Very bright, very inquisitive, always asking for the definition of any word you say that he doesn't know (and some that he does). Jacob wanted to have a party with his friends for his birthday and I obliged. I was going to just have 4 kids at the party (I hear that you are suppose to have the number of guests equal to the child's age), but I didn't want to leave out any good friends, so we ended up with 6 kids here including Jacob. My parents were down to take care of Gavin and be my party assistants, which helped a ton.

So, if you are wondering, this is how a birthday party goes for 6 four year olds...

It starts with pizza and cake, to make sure they have enough energy for all the fun you have in store for them. They sit around the table and tell 4 year old jokes - such as "what if someone ate a volcano". This is followed by uproarious laughter and then another joke such as "why did the chicken cross the road" is told, more laughter. There are no punchlines to these jokes, these are the entire jokes and they all think they are hilarious and can make up endless versions of the same joke. It was so fun to listen to them. They actually at and joked for about a half hour.




Jacob had requested lots of party games. Mostly his requests were pin the tail on the donkey, pin the tail on the bunny, pin the tail on the cow, and bobbing for apples (we'll wait for Halloween for that). I only found pin the nose on the clown at Party City, so that's what we had. Above is Jacob's friend Johnny having his turn.



Then we had a game reminiscent of my childhood, Penny Drop. We always did the clothes pin drop, but I don't have that many clothes pins. This is Jacob's friend Kyle having a go at it after stating that it looked "pretty complicated" as he watched Jacob try it.



Another game we found at Party City was Dog & Cat Match, which was like a memory game. Not such a hit, but entertaining none the less.

Then we had craft time to make visors and decorate our treat bags in preparation for the pinata. Just foamie visors and stickers makes for cute projects.

Then, onto the pinata. I had a baseball theme to the party, mostly based on the pinata. Each kid got about 5 whacks at the pinata before I decided we needed to break out the real bat to make any progress in cracking it. Jacob put the first big crack in it and it was soon busted open for all the kids to scramble for the treasures.



Here was the hit of the party, Freeze Dance. They loved this game. Everyone was jumping around dancing and laughing as we turned the music on and off. I wasn't too stern about the part where they were suppose to sit down if they were still moving when the music stopped. There were no prizes, so it really didnt' matter. They had a great time dancing and taking turns being the DJ.



Here are Jacob's party guests. 3 friends from preschool (Johnny, Maggie and Ben), friend Kyle from MOMS Club playgroup, and Parker who we've known since they were both in the special care nursery. I was a little worried about the mix of kids, but they all did great and meshed with no problem. Poor Maggie was probably a little overhwhelmed by the boys, but she had a good time too. Even I had a good time. The party lasted 2 hours, which was just perfect. It was so fun to watch them all, but I was glad when it was over and I could enjoy a cupcake and relax.




Gavin and a leftover cupcake. There is frosting half way up his arms, across his belly and of course covering his face. He's really mostly just interested in getting the frosting off - my boy!