Belated Birthday Post

Sweet Pea's birthday was a few weeks ago and we are still celebrating. Since our social butterfly has so many friends we had to coordinate two separate parties to accommodate SP's lengthy guest list.

Her first party took place at a local water park. Lady Di gave SP's friends' mothers an extra Mother's Day gift by scheduling the party on Mother's Day. While those mothers were getting a break, our little party was almost the only ones at the pool this day.

Here's our fish in the water. This park had three water slides to rush down. Two of them were large enough to ride down on inner tubes. One of the water slides was a body slide that you rode down without a tube. It was the fast one. It was tame enough at the top of the steps, but about half way through, my momentum was used to full advantage. I am glad that my trunks were tied tight because I'm sure I would have lost them at the bottom of the slide.

This is the rocket slide that I couldn't convince Lady Di to brave. She opted for the more leisurely but no less entertaining 'Toilet Bowl' slide. This tube slide started with a big, sudden drop into darkness only to emerge into the light inside a large orange and pink bowl. After circling around the bowl once or twice our tube was sucked down the drain in the center and flushed out into the pool. Even though Lady Di was having a blast each time down the toilet bowl, she wasn't so courageous her first time. A few of the birthday guests commented on how well Lady Di could scream when she went down her first slide.

The afternoon ended with pizza, cake and more swimming. And no one got a cramp.

Sweet Pea's second birthday party was held at our house. Lady Di set up an art project for all of the girls. We bought some flat, rectangle paving stones from the hardware store and let the girls paint them.

Here Sweet Pea and her friend are comparing flower technique. For some reason a lot of the girls painted flowers, butterflies and lady bugs. Lady Di got this idea many years ago and we now have a dozen or more stepping stones in our yard with the kids' names, hand prints, ages and artwork.

Our second birthday afternoon ended with a spirited game of P o k e n o with Beanie Babies as prizes.

Both birthday parties were fun and SP's friends were all well behaved. LD and I both agreed that two parties were too much. We were wondering what we were thinking. Next year we will all have to share a family birthday party. We will sing 'Happy Birthday' to Sweet Pea, let Number One Son blow out the candles, Lady Di can open presents and I will eat the cake and ice cream. Then every year we will just rotate the birthday order. I'm sure the family will agree with my logic.