Callie's Party

With Callie's birthday falling during Easter weekend, I had decided to celebrate with an Easter-themed party. I thought an egg hunt would be a fun way to do an easy, outside activity that both the older and younger kids would enjoy. We had a GREAT time - it was very successful! :) We had 4 other families join us to celebrate and we had a wonderful time together. All the families had 3 or 4 kids, and the great part was that most had older boys and younger girls - so everyone had a friend! My big boys had their friends to play with, and Callie had her little girlfriends to enjoy - it was wonderful. We are thankful for these friendships that we have made this year!

I made our traditional Easter bunny cake for her birthday cake - just made it two layers instead of just the one layer.
When the kids first arrived, I had them work on decorating their buckets (I had gotten some sand buckets that they can use later to play with outside or at the beach/pool) with some Easter/Spring foam stickers (I LOVE these foam stickers things!) They put their names on them and then went to town decorating them.

Hope and Ella were seriously at work!

The egg hunt was out in the backyard and was great fun! We gave the little ones a head start and then set them all loose!

Some ate inside, others ate outside - it was nice being able to finally have an outside birthday party! :) David grilled hot dogs, and I made macaroni and cheese. We also had chips and strawberries and grapes. Yum!

Ella and Callie cracked me up - they are two peas in a pod. Ella has two big brothers too, so she and Callie are an awful lot alike! :) At the church Easter egg hunt last week, they both were using their glow sticks as light sabres with each other - and the brothers were nowhere in sight! :)

Caleb enjoyed just hanging on in his highchair on the deck! :) And he got his first taste of mac & cheese - YUM!!!!

Time to open presents....

Time for cake!

(Sidenote: notice the party hats? This was the ONE thing Callie requested for her party. I only bought 8 of them because I know from past experience that alot of kids hate them, or you buy them and then they refuse to wear them, etc. Well, EVERYONE wanted one at this party....whoops!! We gave them to the little ones and the big kids just lost out!)

Does she look excited or what? :)

Since this was her third time blowing out candles, she was a pro! :)

She ate all the icing off her cake - I don't think she took a single bite of actual cake! That's okay - she's the birthday girl!

Logan and Caleb - just chillin' on the couch! Caleb laid her with him just like this for probably 15 minutes! It was a riot!

Not more than 5 minutes after the last person left, this was how I found David. Poor guy - the pollen came out of nowhere the day before and he had spent so much time in the yard getting stuff ready for the party. He took some allergy medicine (what he thought was Claritin) this morning, but it was actually Benedryl....so he was a little "off" by the end of the party! :)