And finally, the Birthday Party!

This year, we chose to have the kids' birthday party at the playground instead of at the house.  When I called in the middle of the summer to reserve the clubhouse, Rec & Park wasn't sure they could guarantee that our nearest playground, Cabrillo, would be ready from the remodel and available that day, which was OK since we'd spent most of the summer playing at the next playground down the street, Fulton Playground.  We reserved it from 9-1 and spent the first hour delivering stuff and decorating.  The Rec & Park employee assigned to the party set up a low table and little chairs for us and arranged our balloons on the chairs to make it quite festive.  (And he even looked the other way when we taped up our decorations…as long as we made sure we were using painter's tape…)

LazyTown themed banner courtesy of Sam!

Folks arrived from 10:30 to 11:30 or so and what's great about the playground setting is that they could all just jump into the activity whenever they got there!

Caroline and Ajay on the "rocket ship"

Anjali joins in, too

Once all the kids we were expecting arrived, we called everyone into the clubhouse for cake and Happy Birthday singing.

Daniel's chocolate mustache

And then it was back outside for more fun!

We even brought sidewalk chalk for everyone to decorate with.

Sophie getting into the spirit

A little later, Uncle and Alyssa had a race to the top of the rope structure.  

It looks like Uncle is in the lead...

Did his foot get stuck?

Winner!

All in all a very successful party.  The next time we went to the playground, though, Daniel ran right to the locked clubhouse door and tried to get in, then turned and pouted, "I want cake and candles! I want birthday!"