Grant's Cardinals Birthday Party

Lane -hiding under the table

All three little Cardinal cuties -hiding

Cousins-posin it out

Sweet smiles from Lane

Father/Son picture

Even Mama Ham rocked out some Cards gear

Artists at work

Sassy Cassie

Mallory's infamous "cheese" smile

My parents came wearing Cardinals gear- loved it!

Uncle Mick got confused...he came in Cardinals gear but wear the Arizona Cardinals and then to top it off sported a CUBS shirt underneath. Grant clearly specified (in sidewalk chalk) that there were to be "NO CUBS FANS ALLOWED". Rebel!

The Selby Family

Hanging out with the kiddos under the tables- only the cool people do this.

Sweet smile

The Fricke Family

Give this crazy ole man- some peanuts and coloring crayons and he's set for hours.

Vick and Mick

Grant was loving it. Papa Ham would crack all of the peanuts for him and he'd gobble them up as quickly has papa could un-shell them.

Lori and Elliott-rocking some redbirds attire

sweet baby

Grant's favorite gift- Cardinal china cup from Great-Grandma Barry

Photographer in training

Lane sees books!!! Look out

Grant's new jersey

poor Livvy getting tackled by Lane

Mommy/Daughter shot

Lane enjoyed singing "Happy Birthday"

I love this one!!!

how cute is this?

Mom and Grandma

Bullpen Game

Pin the ball on the bat

Lane got a Tat from Uncle Mick

Lane cuddling with Grandma

Every year around January I start planning for Grant's birthday party in April. Jason calls me insane and I sometimes have to agree with him.  I love to plan parties and think of fun new ways to decorate. Although, I was organized and had planned for months I was still behind in getting several things. Every time we set up for a birthday party at the town hall I am reminded of how lucky we are to have such a place so close by to host these gatherings. I am grateful also that I was able to get in there the day before to set up and decorate everything. It makes it so nice to not have to worry about anything on party day but the food. Food....this year we went with a ballpark theme for all of the food. We had hot dogs (which I ended up just cooking in the Crockpot so that was convenient), chips, fresh fruit and nachos. I screwed up the cheese on the nachos and used Velveeta instead of nacho cheese melt. So the cheese got all hard and clumpy super fast. What was I thinking? I don't know...but it was good all the same. 

This year we played the following games:

Pin the ball on the bat (because apparently I am on some secret mission to see how many variations of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" can be made)

Baseball twister -which was very comical to watch because those kids were all over the place. I am not sure they were old enough for the game as they seemed confused with what was their left and what was their right and their little legs and arms didn't seem quite long enough to reach all of the places necessary to play. I heard lots of giggles anyway so I think they had fun with it and the favorite was the Cardinals bullpen game I made up.  Jason and I eat lots of nuts so several months ago I started saving our empty nut bottles. I took paper and wrapped it around the label to hide the fact that it was actual a nut container and then stacked the five bottles up -gave them a soft baseball and had them try to knock all of the bottles over. It was fun to watch-especially Mallory because she hardly ever threw the ball but would just walk up to them with ball in hand and knock them over that way. Funny!

And of course we had a pinata and coloring. Grant ended up wanting to wear his broken pinata since it did resemble a cardinals jersey.  We took box tape and taped him in it...it was hysterical because his mobility and range of motion was severely impaired with it on...he had me rolling-so funny. 

The kids had a blast and I enjoyed every second of the party too-so carefree and fun with absolutely NO stress (like some parties can be).  Now I have to wait until August to revisit the party planner phase again.  Already have some ideas. hehehe.