We were planning to have Molly’s birthday party at Pease Park, but the weather forecast called to 50% chance of rain, so we decided at the last minute to move it to our house. Of course, it did not rain after all, so we have it outside at our house. Anyways, it was a great party. Here are two genuine quotes overheard from her friends at the party:
This is the best party ever!
I don’t want this party to ever end!
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
With sumer dragging on and Claire not having seen much of her friends the last couple of months, I felt like she could use a little lift before school suddenly started. We decided to have an end-of-summer party to match Claire’s beginning-of-summer party. Claire invited a small group of friends over to celebrate basically going back to school and being together again. Really, it was just a glorified play date.
The party featured a small inflatable pool with the world’s smallest water slide, water sprayers, and water balloons. Yes, school is starting, but it is really still summer outside. Claire had also wanted to do a lemonade stand, and she happened to have a workable cardboard lemonade stand that she had made with her favorite summer sitter, Julia. The girls set up shop on our front curb. The lemonade, made from a mix, was $.50 per cup — or free if you don’t have any money or too large of a bill to make change. Claire’s friends were really good at hailing cars, bikers, and walkers. It helped that the weekend exercise types were out in force. The girls ended up selling about $12 of lemonade in about 45 minutes. They split up the money and resolved to donate part to a cause of their own choosing. One friend was going to donate all her money to the Philippines. Another’s went to the pet shelter. Claire is saving hers for Winter the injured dolphin, who is featured in a favorite movie of hers.
The girls also put on an impromptu show when the various parents came for pickup. It was sort of a very disorganized Hawaiian luau of sorts. It was fun, and the parents clapped, etc. Then the kids ran and hid to try to avoid going home, if only for a few more minutes.
The girls happily included Molly in the water play, the lemonade stand , and the show. They all think Molly is adorable and want a little sister like her.
Claire has scored more than her share of candy lately. First, Valentines Day was a jackpot. She came home with a white paper bag full of candy (and accompanying valentines cards) compliments of her 16 classmates. I think I was those only parent who just sent Valentines cards and no candy. I figured I was doing other parents a service by giving them one less piece of candy to deal with. I can see now that this is an uphill fight, and maybe I was just being uptight about the whole thing. Next year, it’s Fun Dip for everyone!
The following day was a birthday party for her friend and classmate Georgia. As luck would have it, the party was right after Claire’s swim class, a couple of doors down. So Claire topped off her 40 minutes of swimming (well, crying) with another 45 minutes of running and jumping and rolling around. Then came the pizza and juice boxes, after which sadly, Claire could not eat all of the birthday cake put in front of her. To top it off, they sent her home with a party bag full of candy to add to her Valentines collection.
We dealt with this candy glut by giving Claire one piece of candy each morning and one piece each evening (Kit did some of her own “helping” as well). One night after Claire had already enjoyed her candy allotment for the day, she started asking for more candy. She was being very sweet 
about it, actually. But I said no, she already had her candy for the day. She asked again nicely, and I said no again. Then she sighed a slow “oookaaay” and carried the white candy bag over to her “timeout” corner, where we normally send her for two minutes if she misbehaves (like hockey). She left the bag on the floor there and walked back to me. I asked her why she left the bag there, and she explained that the candy was having a timeout. That nearly killed me. I almost gave her a piece of candy right there on the spot just for being so cute. (But sadly, I did not.)
McG Kids 