Party Animals

The kids were all out playing baseball with Ken in the backyard with the big plastic bat. Somehow Spencer had broken the plastic, but it still worked....until Mark whacked a ball nice and hard and it disappeared! Where was it??? INSIDE the bat! Silly Jessie is behind him sporting her triclops eye.
We had a friends party for Jessie this year for her 9th birthday. After two different friends parties for the kids in the past I wasn't hugely excited about this, but I've now decided 9 year-olds are a lot of fun. This party was a blast even for Ken and me. Jessie helped plan out the games to play. The first was musical chairs.

Jessie helped me make a bunch of little magnets to give out as prizes at the end of each round of the games we played and the kids enjoyed picking the color they wanted. Next we had a 3-legged race.
And then we played an untwisting game.
Our last game was dodge ball. Jessie was the first thrower and didn't have much success getting people out so Ken stepped in to help move the game along.
I just had to put this picture in...what a great dad!
After everyone got a drink we did a treasure hunt that Ken put together for me. He's so creative sometimes. The first clue was a rhyme, the second a secret code. To get the third clue they had to sing a couple of songs to Ken first -- I'm a little tea pot, Just gimme that milk (pictured below are some of the actions of that song where the kids "milk" each others thumbs), and....

...the Makarena (instead of whatever the real words are the kids sang the months of the year).
The next clue was a puzzle.
And for the final clue they had to color over white crayon with a marker. Hidden with each clue was a bag of goodies to make our craft. While everyone was inside putting together the craft Ken found Spencer outside refilling everyone's cups. Ahhh... how sweet.
Spencer helped put the candles in Jessie's lemon cake.

For our craft the kids put together flowers like at our primary activity except instead of putting them on popsicle sticks we hot glued the flowers to pens I had wrapped with floral tape. Then the girls filled a little glass flower pot with glass beads to stick their pens into. Ken tied to get a picture of them and instead of saying "cheese" Jessie and two of the friends yelled out "Frindle." (If you haven't read that book it's super and I highly suggest it.)
Happy Birthday Jessie!
This evening Jessie unwrapped her gifts from us. Spencer loved her new shirt and decided to wear it to bed for his pajamas. At least he was being happy though. The last few days haven't been his best days on the happy scale and that makes the days long for everyone.
Jessie also opened a new bike helmet, a thesaurus to help her with the stories she loves to write and a sticker book of horses.

One last thought (I know this has been long, but this is also my journal for right now), when I was helping my friend feed horses this week one of the stalls had a mama goat sticking her head to two front legs out of they stall bawling for her dinner too. She had two babies in with her and I totally thought of my dad who is dying to get goats. They were so cute. So the kids and I are going to go see them tomorrow and I think it'll be so fun.

Tonight Ken made us a delicious pot roast in the pressure cooker I got for Mother's Day and we had roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes with rosemary and garlic) to go with it. Afterwards a lady from our ward and three of her kids came over to help us eat the rest of Jessie's birthday cake. And it's good thing too because tomorrow we are celebrating Jessie and Ken's mom birthday here with the family and then on Thursday we celebrating Ken's grandma's birthday and I'm making cakes for both of them. Let them eat cake, and lots of it!