I didn't want to have a birthday party for Alice because they are not my sort of thing, but we were talking about what she wanted to do for her birthday one day, and through the discussion we ended up planning her party. We decided to have it at our fire pit (she wanted the pool, but that's too complicated). So I made this invitation and she gave them to about 15 friends at school. But every day she'd come home asking me to print off another one or two because she thought of somebody else to invite. I was starting to get worried we'd have 20 kids that I'd never met before running around the backyard. It turns out about a dozen RSVPed yes, so that seemed like a good amount of friends.
On the morning of the party, we had swim practice like normal and I let her stay afterwards for a while to play with Riley and Lily.
Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for the party. A little before 5:00 the friends started arriving. They were all super excited once they saw our backyard, with the pond, swings, hammock, and fire pit, it is pretty impressive these days. We didn't plan games or anything, figuring the kids would just hang out and cook hot dogs. It turns out, they were very interested in the s'mores and fruit salad, but not much of the rest of the food. We also had snacks, corn on the cob, and even chicken wings. They did a pretty good job entertaining themselves and we just stood around and tended to the food and fire.
