Happy 4th Birthday Austin!

Austin turned 4 last week!

As it was a Wednesday, his birthday was fairly low key. We went for a playdate at a nearby indoor playground during the day and had a small celebration that evening -- just the four of us -- with cake and presents, of course.

His party was on Sunday (Feb. 28) and for the first time, we decided to do a kids-only party. Invited were four 3 and 4 year olds (his friends Lilo, Izzy, Aaliyah and Tyler) for two hours in the afternoon. Their parents dropped them off at 2 p.m. and they were all ours until 4 p.m.

I'll admit, although we believed we were well-prepared to keep them entertained, we were a little nervous, when, seven minutes into the party, two of the kids and Austin were fighting over the balloons while running around screaming, one kid was staring at the three of them like they were crazy and the fourth was just sitting in the corner, playing with toys and minding her own business.

But after some quick-thinking intervention with a round of freeze dance and then teaching the kids how to limbo, things went much more smoothly after that.

As I said, we had many activities planned to keep them entertained and on course -- including a craft, which was a hit. I've never seen six kids (Alex included) run to sit at a table so fast when I yelled somthing other than cake time! We gave them all markers, crayons, stickers and blank party hats to decorate. They had a blast.
After that, we played a few more games, opened presents, fed them cake (check out my fun ice cream cone cupcakes -- they were cool to look at, fun for the kids to eat and cut down on the mess kids tend to make when eating cake) just in time to send them home to their parents.

In all, it was a fun time. And Austin had a blast.