Party Day

Sean's party was yesterday. We had a beautiful, sunny day and held the festivities in our back yard, under the shade of the neighbor's trees.

The guests played lots of games. I was inside for a lot of the action, but did manage to have a few laughs as I watched this sweet group of homeschooled five and six-year-olds learn to play duck-duck-goose. Holly and Laurel were in charge of the games, and they did a fantastic job.

We served individual pizzas, a fruit salad (strawberries, blueberries, and nectarines) and chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream. And lemonade. Lots of lemonade!

The kids had an egg race (boys against the girls, of course):
Notice the intense concentration required, as evidenced by the sticking-out tongue.




















The pinata was a huge hit (har har). It took many, many, many strikes to get the paper mache beast to give up his loot. I thought he possibly might have been constructed of reinforced concrete, but no, he did eventually succumb to the kindergarteners' relentless beating.



































We gave out goody-bags filled with cool stuff that Sean picked out: bubbles, dinosaurs, horses, stickers, a pinwheel, and a pen that writes in a bunch of different colors depending on which switch you push. There was a parachute-guy, too. Oh, and a party blower. Someone recently informed me that you can't have a party without party blowers. I was not going to argue with the guest of honor over that point, no way.

Here's a picture of the boy-version of the (empty) goody-bag. The girl-version is almost the same, except instead of a blue beetle, there was a red ladybug.















Here's a shot of what I was doing at 5AM on party day.

Today is Sean's actual birthday. His choice of dinner is prepackaged chicken kiev. Blech! I can only imagine the load of preservatives and fillers it contains. We'll have fresh green beans, pasta, and fruit salad to accompany it. Dessert will be the other chocolate-with-ganache cake that I prepared on Wednesday. Holly wants to decorate this one, and I'm happy to let her do it. I don't like working with frosting at all (especially since discovering the joys of ganache). She's planning to draw Superman on the top of the cake. I'll post the results later.

First I have to mix up some frosting, and she needs to finish her reading assignment.