Now that I've blogged about the
invitations and
decorations from Charlotte's birthday party lets move to the real thing! We had a smaller party this year and only invited the kids from our Supper Club and Charlotte's friends from school. Although, any party is a big party when you have so much extended family within close proximity! The number of adults probably outnumbered the kids at least two to one.
Like I mentioned in my decorations post, they brought the blow up early so Charlotte got to watch them set it up before lunch. She was so excited and kept saying "Wow!"
After a little bit of playtime with Daddy in the bounce house she headed inside for lunch and a nap. We were afraid that she wasn't going to be able to go to sleep because she was so excited but she managed to control herself eventually and fell asleep by one, which is really early by our current nap efforts!
She woke up from her nap and was so excited. After getting dressed in her chosen outfit, her strawberry dressed, she immediately headed outside and back to the bounce house. We had thirty minutes before her friends arrived and she took full advantage of that time to play! I even got in with her and we bounced and went down the slide together.
Family picture. Can you tell that we are already really hot and we had just walked outside??! We thankfully got a beautiful day with no clouds in the sky but that meant there was nothing to block the sun and the Alabama heat and humidity was intense!
James lasted about 3 minutes in his jumper before someone got him out of it. The rest of the party he was passed around between family members. He did pretty good but got a little overwhelmed at all of the unfamiliar faces.
While we were jumping Charlotte said that we needed to sit down so that the cheerleaders could have a turn. At least her imaginary friends made it to her birthday party!
Charlotte's first friend to arrive was her friend Abby from school. Charlotte talked about Abby all year so I think they were big buds. They had a lot of fun jumping and sliding together! Eventually other friends came too and the bounce house filled up quickly!
I love the concentration on her face and her tongue sticking out!
When she would get almost all the way down she would always jump forward to land on her face. Seems like a bad idea to me, but she loved it!
She had to take a break for some water because while it was hot outside it was even hotter in the bounce house!
After about 45 minutes of playtime we breaker for cupcakes. Charlotte was very quiet during the whole thing and didn't really smile at all but once she got her cupcake and some sugar in her and everyone's attention was off of her she perked up some!
The party was from 3:30 - 5 and Jason took James up to nap at 4:30. However the end of the party was a little disturbing because James kept screaming over the monitor. We thought that he eventually calmed down and went to sleep but after about 5 minutes found out that Dad had accidentally turned the monitor off! So Memma went and rescued him and as soon as he saw me he started crying and reaching for me. We got some snuggles in and he perked back up!
Charlotte had a blast at her party which was all that we wanted. We enjoyed seeing friends and getting to catch up. And it's always nice to have family to celebrate with us. It's always hard at parties like this that you throw to talk to everyone. Especially in this situation because we were trying to monitor kids the whole time. But it was a great afternoon and I think next year's party will be hard pressed to beat this one!
