Cowboy Party Fun! (part 1)

Like I said before, I think this was one of my very favorite parties.  I'm a small party person.  I like to feel like I can connect with everyone at the party.   When there are too many people things get crazy...like Andrew's 2nd birthday ~ we had 30 people and I said I'd never do it again.

It was chaos.

Andrew really wanted to invite a couple of his friends from church/small group though, and that was great.  I was surprised at the difference just 2 children added ~ it felt like a bigger party!  But we had a great time.  Probably because I know these families well and so they are so easy to have around.



Here are Amy and Rachel ~ whose little ones Ben & Samuel came to the party.  Rachel wore her young life muscle shirt just in honor of Andrew's party because it was the most cowboy looking thing she owns.  She's sweet like that.  It was really great having them there and of course my party partner in crime was there as well. :)  Mike and Michelle were here too, but I didn't get a great photo of them.

After the kids arrived we played games in the backyard.  This was the part where I felt like we had a lot of people and my voice could not compete!  Thank goodness for Dan's natural megaphone voice.  I was very relieved when he took over.  We separated the kids into groups of 2 with one adult assigned to each group and they rotated through games.  That way they were always doing something and not waiting for a turn too often.

Waiting = chaos.  :)

The kids did great.  The first photo at the top of the post was where Andrew was "panning for gold" in the sandbox.   (River rocks that the boys dug out of Nana's yard the week before and I spray painted them gold).

Next was "Bobbing for Apples."
Someone was caught bending the "no hands" rule a little bit.... 





I just love this one of Ben and Samuel. 



And this one of Matthew and Isaiah. Too cute.  I rotated around with them and Shannon snapped pictures for me (thank you!!)  I was glad that these two were still willing to play the games.



Here's Hannah "Panning for Gold."



Michelle rotated with Andrew and Noah. Here they are "Calf Roping!"



Grandpa was a great help at the water gun area and would fill up the water guns in between kids. Here he is helping Gracie.



Noah is happy to be doing the "Clothes pin drop." :)

~ we are in Vegas right now and I thought I might be able to finish this post tonight, (I'm falling really behind on the blog!) but I'm just too tired, so I'm going to be headed off to bed and will finish up hopefully tomorrow night. 

'Night!