On Tuesday, we spent the morning getting ready for the party. I decided a few months ago that I wanted to rent an inflatable water slide. I had looked for one and the prices were too high. I was super disappointed. Then, I found a random contact at a baseball game that told me about a local church that rented one out for much less than everyone else. I called them up and they said it would only be $200. I knew that was still a lot of money, but I really, really love throwing awesome parties for my kids and their friends and I knew that if we did both kid's birthday parties together, it would maybe make sense. Rob came home at 11:30am. He borrowed Jill's car to go pick up the slide. They told us that we could also use the inflatable bungee run too. It took us a few hours to set up the inflatables and then Rob went back to work for a couple of hours. At 5:00pm, 19 kids showed up to the party. We had both inflatables set up, as well as a large tarp for a slip n' slide. It was complete chaos trying to manage helping kids, talking to parents when they came, and manning the activities, but the kids HAD. A. BLAST! At about 6:00pm, we put hot dogs on the grill. Once again, Rob and I had fewer hands than we needed, but we made it work. We served hot dogs, chips, and watermelon. Then, we opened presents and had cupcakes. All of the parents were so generous. Our kids got so many amazing gifts! We closed off the night with a giant water balloon fight. Rob and our kids had blown up 300 water balloons. After the fight, the kids all went back to sliding and bungeeing until their parents came. We handed out sunglass cookies and beach balls as favors. It was the best party ever! I just loved seeing how happy it made my kids and their friends. After all of the kids left, Rob and I took some turns sliding down the water slide. It was so fun; I was sad to pack it up and send it off. Honestly, I was so sad to see the night end. Jill and Todd was super nice to help us dry off and put away the inflatables. It took a couple of hours, but it would have taken us much longer to do it without them. We are so grateful for their friendship. Rob and Todd dropped the trailer off at about 10:00pm and I put the kids to bed.
On Wednesday, Hurley had gymnastics and we ran some errands while she was in the cheer room. In the evening, Rob took Zaya's training wheels off of her bike. She learned very quickly how to ride her bike and she spent the rest of the evening practicing and showing off. Rob had a softball game at 8:45pm.
On Thursday, we spent some time at home. At night, Brooklen had his first sandlot baseball game. He got to play catcher for the first time in the game. I think he was really excited to try something new.
On Friday, I took the kids swimming at the Herlin's house. They are an older couple in our ward that opens up their pool to anyone in the ward to use. I have been so grateful for their generosity and I always tell Rob that I hope we can "pay it forward" someday.
On Saturday, we went to Dow Gardens to check on our garden. We spent some time wandering through the children's garden, playing in the sand, and making bubbles. You can tell by the pictures which of the kids wanted their picture taken that day! Afterwards, we went to Beard's Lakeview Farm to pick blueberries. They had mostly tart berries ripe, so we didn't pick very many. When we got home, Rob worked in the yard with Brooklen and Kaiton and I took the girls to Meijer.
Today, was a nice Sunday. Brooklen had his baptism interview after church. He was pretty nervous about it, but I think he did great. This evening, we had a new family, the Bills Family, over for dessert. Thomas Bills has been playing softball with Rob and it was nice to get to know them.
Lastly, I had to record a cute story about Zaya. Earlier in the week, we were talking about freckles. Brooklen and Hurley were discussing how many they each had. A couple of days ago, I asked Zaya to wash up her face after dinner. She went in to the bathroom and when she came out she said in such an excited voice, "MOM! I got a freckle!" She had a small round scab on her forehead that she thought was a freckle. She was so excited to be like her siblings that I could break it to her that it was just a scab!
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