Birthday Happenings

Aleks' friend River was born on Aleks' due date. So River is 15 days older than Aleks. And about four feet taller, but so's everyone. We apparently only really know people with really tall parents because all of Aleks' friends are bigger than him by at least a head. In fact, he gets hand-me-downs from a kid 10 months younger than him. Aleks and Bastian have extraordinarily short parents. Jon is only 5 foot 7 and I'm 5 foot 1-3/4. The 3/4" is important. I often claim 5' 2", naturally. When I was pregnant, I think I shrank to 5' 3/4", but I got the inch back somehow.

So River turned 8 and had this totally awesome birthday party at this totally awesome park fairly close to our neighborhood which we didn't know about. First, we helped set up. Then the kids painted crowns, swords, and shields.
Bastian's shield.
There was this really cool play structure that I had to try out after watching the kids on it for hours.

There was also this totally awesome art installation there too. A local artist made this Arachne with her web out of entirely recycled materials. Whoever this artist is, she's after my own heart.
The web was composed of wire with bits of scrap metal, beads, and bottle caps.
See?
In addition to all that, there were capes made of thrifted tee-shirts, water balloons, a tug-of-war, a piñata...





...and my favorite part, jousting! That's me there, jousting with Aleks.

River's older brother (who sometimes watches my kids), made these totally awesome wearable horses for us to joust with.
How many times can I say totally awesome in a blog post? Well, we'll just have to see if any parties beat this one and maybe I can increase that number.

*Retroactive blog posting, as per the last many posts. yarg.