Friend Party

With Natalie turning 9 next week, we had her friend party yesterday (Saturday). We thought it was funny that her 9th birthday party was on the 9th of May (the little things that make you smile).(OK, just realized the 9 should have been flipped to the other side!)
We had been hoping to swim in the river, but the recent rains kept it too high and swift (Robert and Jason checked it out during the party, just to make sure - i.e. fishing - and came back wet up to their waists).

We went with plan B: indoor options, and the girls had a lot of fun with old-time favorites.
After "hook the fish", they played musical chairs (Taylor Swift played pretty much the whole party).

Logan started out in the musical chair game, but as soon as those girls started running around the chairs, he quickly moved out of their way!

The balloon popping game. We really gave them a workout!

And the chocolate bar game.
For those who might not know this game, you take a large Hershey's candy bar - the BIG one and wrap it up in individual layers of news paper, MANY layers of newspaper (my mom would tie it with string as well, but I didn't this time). Then you get winter gloves, hat, and scarf, table knife and fork, and dice. Everyone sits in a circle and takes turns rolling the dice. If you roll doubles, you put on the gloves, hat, and scarf and then start opening the wrapping with the fork and knife (NO HANDS) - while the others continue rolling the dice. If someone else rolls doubles, the gloves, hat, scarf, etc. gets passed on to them and they start at the candy bar. Sometimes the next doubles are rolled before the hat and gloves even get on. The person who gets the candy bar out is the winner and keeps the candy bar as the prize (it should still be it's wrapper, but our game was a bit more intense and it ended with the candy bar OUT of it's wrapper as well). The girls really got into it. I started going horse, cheering them on! Natalie ended up winning the candy bar and shared a piece with everyone.

Natalie wanted a beach cake. If I had been more on the ball, I would have had fruit roll-up beach towels and an umbrella (I had thought about it, but not while I was at the store).

Everyone sang (including Natalie, to herself), she made a wish, and blew out the candles. I actually had to have her fake blow for the picture, because Logan put his head right in the way of the real blowing out of the candles. :)

Logan was so excited for the cake. He was with me when I got the Swedish Fish and I had given him a couple. He LOVED them and kept asking for more, but I told him he had to wait for the cake. He saw me decorating the cake and kept asking for some, I told him he had to wait. He kept asking for me to "open cake" (the cake holder) and I told him to wait. He would even sing "happy birthday to you" (just those four words) in hopes that would mean it was time for cake! Needless to say, he was ready for the cake and ice cream when the time came.
After opening gifts . . . the girls went out to play volleyball, with a beach ball, over the badminton net.

Everyone had fun.
A great start to celebrating a great, almost 9 year old, girl's birthday.

Happy Birthday Natalie! More family fun on Tuesday!