Birthday Party!

Although not five until the 23rd, Hazel had her neighborhood friends over yesterday for her birthday party. With fond memories of her cousin's party last year, My Little Pony was Hazel's theme of choice. Hazel drew a picture of each of her ponies, so the other kids would know which ponies were which.

Here's a closeup of Rainbow Dash and portrait. I think she did a stellar job!
How nice and calm it was before everyone arrived... actually, the kids were all great and my fears of an out-of-control preschool bash were totally unnecessary. We had nice quiet coloring of pony pictures (and robots for those less pony inclined).

Daddy kept the one non-colorer at bay with the edge of his sword.

We have two sets of twins in the neighborhood, and they're all Hazel's age - a ready made preschool gang - what fun! Here are Brady and Carson walking on the silly sounds path.

Sweet little James tagged along and while shy at first, eventually dove into the fun with the big kids.

Here's the whole gang, minus Brady who got impatient with the photographer and dove out the door.

They all enjoyed playing, but someone was asking about the cake every couple minutes...Twins Cassidy and Patrick.

Brady's job since we moved in next door has been to make silly faces and make Hazel laugh, and he's very good at it.

Meanwhile, Carson impresses Hazel with his feats of prowess... like eating with no hands. I love these boys, and it's hilarious to watch them vie for Hazel's attention.

A very happy birthday girl!

Since I'm behind on blogging, you might not know that Hazel started reading in November. She's reading quite well now, and she read all her birthday cards out loud. I'm sure she'll soon be back to a quick glance at the cards and then ripping open the presents.

Waiting for me to shoot confetti from upstairs...

I forgot about the intense interest in the presents... this is a little travel Diego set. They all figured out how it worked, while I was reading the directions and trying to keep up.

Emmie is Brady and Carson's sister and was a good sport to join the preschoolers at the party, as she's in second grade, though she wasn't too old to enjoy the "raspberry" noise maker in her party bag. Hazel idolizes her, of course, and loves to play with her too.

Hazel had many grand ideas for her party, most of which I managed to help her forget. The one we did keep was the fish pond. I made the pond and Hazel made all the fish. They had paperclips on them so the kids could fish them out with a magnet on a string. Then Hazel had drawn numbers on the back, and the kids took home the party bag with the matching number. They also liked the fish and took them home, so here's Hazel's lone fish swimming in his pond.

I'm fairly certain a grand time was had by all. Hazel was more than satisfied with her party and loved all her presents. And... my one parenting fear all along didn't turn out to be so bad. Really, when considering having children the biggest fear I've always had is birthday parties. Silly I guess, but next year I still think I'll consider a craft party at Micheal's.