Birthday Bash Weekend

The advantage to having all 3 kid's birthday's in June: one huge Birthday Bash. The downside: June is beyond busy. Birthday Bash weekend was spent prepping, partying, cleaning up, unleashing a gaggle of new toys, and recovering. Overall, it was a very successful weekend!

Saturday was quite the busy day: frosting cupcakes, the usual laundry and daycare prep, a birthday party to attend for the oldest mini, putting sandwiches together, slicing cheese, and errand running.

Harrison and Elizabeth (somewhat) waited patiently for me to frost over 100 cupcakes. When I was done, they got to eat the frosting I didn't use.

Max did an awesome job putting together sandwiches for his party. 

Making their Father's Day cards for their Grandpa's rounded out our Saturday.

Sunday morning started cloudy and breezy and wound up being the perfect day for park playing, cold water swimming, and Birthday Bash-ing.

We had the kid's party at Raccoon River Park in West Des Moines. We absolutely love this park: TONS to do, a park big enough that it doesn't matter how crowded it gets, decent shelters, easy to access bathrooms (when you're dealing with more than a dozen kids this one is important), a nice large parking lot (we still like this parking lot even though our van got hit at some point in the 4 hours we were parked in the spot), and this park holds a significant piece of Matt and I's history as a couple (we were married in the Nature Lodge at the park). I highly recommend the beach area and they have excellent activities during the week for kids.

 Matt (and all other dad's) gave up yet another Father's Day to help us celebrate the kid's birthday's. The kids had a great time playing on the playground, running through the spray pad, and swimming in the cold lake with their daycare friends, family, and classmates.

The food spread: deli sandwiches, watermelon, and chips.

The cupcake/present table.

The kids table. I made slime and loaded up crayons and paper just in case the cloudy, breezy day gave way to rain. We lucked out and it was the most gorgeous weather we've ever had on a Birthday Bash Day (the year that Elizabeth was born and our first year of doing the Birthday Bash, it was 95+ degrees).

While we were busy getting the shelter ready, the kids played with Daddy and Aunt Jenny on the playground.

The Dollar Tree badges (Miss E's reading Princess and the boy's reading Birthday Boy) didn't stay on for long before they were ripped off and handed back to me.

The friends arrived and the kids were off! This year the kids were a bit better about coming back to the shelter to eat lunch, have a cupcake, and open presents (last year there was tears....because god forbid we make them open gifts!), but they would have been totally fine playing with their friends all afternoon.

I love these little girl's curls!

Of course Harrison had to be the first one in the spray pad....and then everyone followed.

The lake water was absolutely freezing but it sure didn't stop several of the kids from hoping in!

I asked Harrison to show me what he got....and he held it right in front of his face.

Elizabeth with her coveted new Snow White purse. She has asked for this purse every time we went to Target in the last 4 months, but I refused to buy it for her. Luckily, Aunt Cindi got it for her for her birthday so I can stop taking a stroll through the toy section just so she can admire this purse!

A shout out to our Dad's for spending their Father's Day at the kid's birthday party once again!! 

After the party, we made our way home to unleash the toys and get the house in order. The cat was in heaven with all of the tissue paper, while Matt was the official toy opener.

The kids had another great Birthday Bash for the books. I am still beat from the exhausting day, but I so much enjoyed seeing all of our family and friends gather to celebrate our babies getting another year older.

As much fun as we're having this June, I can tell it's nearing the end of the month because I'm running out of steam from our busyness! Next weekend is Harrison's 4 birthday!! I can't quite believe he's already 4. We've got quite the 3 day weekend planned: Adventureland, cake, playing, and swingset building.