HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLYN ! ! !

The Birthday Girl!

The long awaited day has finally arrived, July 11, Ashlyn turned 4 years old! Ashlyn has been asking me about her birthday every day for as long as I can remember, I think she's been planning her party all year. It's fun to see how exciting birthdays can be for a four year old, it truly is the highlight of her year. So, we had two parties, one for her friends at the pool then again on her actual birthday at home with family.

Since she obviously knew what she was doing, I just let her plan the party, I have to say she did a great job! Ashlyn decided she wanted a pool party, great idea, no prep and no clean up! She wanted to decorate cupcakes, hit a pinata, eat cheese chips (aka Cheetos) and drink soda! Sounds good to me, consider it done! Let them create cupcakes and get covered in cheesy chips at the pool, no one has to clean up the house or the kids. Get them all sugared up on soda then send them home, once again no more worries. Everything Ashlyn "planned" worked out perfectly. I even took her shopping to pick out all the plates, cups, candy, balloons and party favors, it was even fun for me!

Here is a run down of the festivities....

Decorating cupcakes was fun for everyone and saved me from having to make a cake!

Hitting the pinata was fun, of course its not everyday you get to beat something with a stick until it breaks. The "hit" of a 4 year old is more like a soft pat to the pinata, so even after 14 kids the pinata wouldn't give up any candy. So I handed the stick to the nearest 12 year old and told her to make sure that thing gave up its candy, and it did, with one hit

(the little ones must have loosened it up for her :)

What's a pool party without water! It was entertaining to see a group of kids all about the same age and how some of them clung to the sides for dear life, while others were jumping in entirely on their own. My friends and I have been trying to decide where the fear of water comes from? Is it something your born with like part of your personality or does it all depend on how traumatized you are when you first meet water? It's amazing how some kids, even smaller then Ashlyn are jumping right in and swimming under, while others won't even get their baby toe wet. Ashlyn is fits in the middle of that spectrum, but improving slowly, now she'll float around on her own in a floaty, and that is an amazing step for her. Preston will get his face wet, but only a little bit. Ashlyn has been through 3 sets of swim classes and still freaks out when her eyes get wet. Makes you wonder why she wanted a pool party in the first place!

The highlight of the festivities, for Ashlyn anyway, are the presents! Two parties equals lots of presents! I'm sure its the worst part of the party for the other kids, sitting around watching someone else get all the cool toys you don't even get to play with. Preston especially had trouble watching Ashlyn have all the fun, as you can see him assisting in the pictures above,

he can't stay away.

I missed the present portion of the pool party because it was about this time that we discovered Preston covered head to toe in poop, apparently those swim diapers are not made to function as actual diapers. Kendall and Nick discovered the dilemma, but guess who got to clean it up, they quickly volunteered to help with presents!

Here are the people on the sidelines that make it all happen, Nick and Colton aren't pictured but we couldn't have done it without them! I also recruited the Smith girls, Austin, Kelsie and Drew to help make sure no one would drown! It almost took one adult for every kid there to make sure everyone got everything at about the same time, which makes all the difference when you are dealing with 4 year olds!

The highlight of party number 2 is the revealing of the birthday cake, this year a three layered strawberry cake with Strawberry shortcake herself on top, sorry Strawberry Shortcake got snatched off the cake before Kendall could get a close-up. I enjoy making cakes, I like to try something new for each birthday; however the one was a nightmare which almost left me in tears. I literally had to scrape off the icing and reapply twice. Obviously I'm not as

professional as I thought I was:)