4th Birthday Party

On Jack's actual birthday, we had his big 4th birthday party, which was a LOT of fun.  This was the first year that he'd really been interested and wanted to invite friends...unfortunately, our house went on the market just a couple of weeks before, so having a party at home seemed to be a bad idea.  While I'm not a huge fan of big over-done birthday parties for little ones, we really couldn't ask that the house not be shown for an entire Saturday just 2 weeks after it went on the market so we decided to have his party at Maymont.  Little did we know the house would be sold already and we could have had it at home, but it's ok - it worked out great and I didn't have to clean the house! :)

Jack is a HUGE fan of Maymont so it seemed a good fit.  However, he is also a huge fan of superheroes and mixing farm animals and superheroes into something cohesive was a bit of a challenge.  I'm not really even sure we succeeded, but I can tell you that Jack Lion thinks we did and that's all that matters.  He had the BEST time being surrounded by his friends in one of his favorite spots on earth.  It was really neat to watch.

We colored and cut, two of Jack's favorite things to do.  

We played pin the Spidey on the web and Jack got to go first and pinned it right in the very dead center!?  He later admitted that he could see through the blindfold.  OOPS.  

We had an obstacle course painstakingly designed and constructed by Kenny.  He worked really hard on it and it was super cute...

We played superheroes.

We had pizza and cake!

We played with and fed the animals that were out in the pen next to the party room.

We got to pet a duck that they brought by to see us.

We climbed on the gate and watched the animals being led out of the barn into the sunshine.  This was Jack's very favorite part!

We ran around like silly-heads and just enjoyed being with our friends.  That's what it's all about...and while it was a lot of work and there were times when I wished we'd just invited everyone to Chuck E. Cheese and called it done, it really was ALL worth it.  

Jack even tried his hand at writing his very own thank you notes.  I was really proud of him.  He didn't love it...but he did it!

Thanks to all who helped make it come together (especially Eddie and Audrey and Grandma!) and to all those who came and played and made his day so perfect!