Elijah's 6th Birthday

We celebrated Elijah's birthday today. What a day! We had 14 adults and 19 children come. It was pretty crazy. The party started at 3:30 but the guests started arriving at 2:45 and the last ones arrived at 4 so we had a HUGE window of time where everyone was just sitting around. Fortunately we had quite a few who liked to talk to so that helped to keep things going. For the first time ever I tried to have a game for the kids. That was a fiasco, none of the kids wanted to follow any sort of rules and just ended up throwing things all over the place. Then we served up the cake and ice cream. That went better than expected, all things considered. The kids all ate out back which kept the mess to a minimum. After everyone was done with their cake I wanted to let the kids play a bit to run off some energy before we did the gifts. We had some decorative border blocks out back and one of the kids (we don't know who) moved them all into our play castle. Then, one of the girls was in the castle and the tower of blocks collapsed and sliced open the side of her knee. We cleaned it up as well as we could with antiseptic cream and band aids but she will probably need stitches. :-( We opened gifts and then it was like a switch was hit and everyone had to leave at once. For me it was a very stressful time, I think we might be done with birthday parties. Although I asked Mark how he thought it went and he said fine and Elijah had a great time, so we will just have to see...

This weeks toys

I keep several bins of larger toys and once a week I change them out. Today was the day to change it so I got out a new bin, all the little people sets. It always amazes me how long the kids will play with a toy that they haven't seen for a week :-). The bins that I have are lincoln logs, large legos, little people sets and dress up clothes. I tried changing them out every day but for my personality it works better to do it once a week. When we do it this way all the toys get played with but I don't have to have them all out at once. :-) As for the smaller toys, stuffed animals, books and games, I have half of them packed up and the other half out. Once a month I switch them all out. I got this idea from a friend and it works very well for us. Again, all the toys get played with but we are not overrun with toys. :-)

First Black Eye...

Jeremiah had a little run in with the concrete patio out back yesterday and got his first black eye. It looks terrible! Poor guy! He is just getting the hang of walking and tripped over his own feet. Ouch! At least it wasn't one of his siblings fault. :-)