Birthdays and Playground Parties

On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for Saoirse at her house.  The kids first met Saoirse at a mutual friend's birthday party, at which time she seemed to decide that Daniel was the dreamiest of little kids but that Max was simply not worth playing with.  It was kind of hilarious.

There was food upstairs at the party, but the minute the kids looked out the window and saw the swing and playhouse Saoirse's daddy built outside, they were begging to be taken down the "scary stairs" and out into the backyard.  The kids took turns looking out all the windows of the play house (and calling to the dog who was just beyond the gate there).  One funny thing is that if you give my kids a window to lean out of, their immediate go-to imagination game is to play ice cream store.  And they are always giving away free ice cream, too!

Free ice cream!

Caroline climbed up the step ladder to get to the "upstairs", but slipped and fell on her way down, bumping her arm.  She ran over to me and I comforted her, and then it was time to go in for the next stage of festivities.  Later in the day, she went back, climbed up, and slipped and fell again.  It was then that I realized she didn't know how to come down a ladder - she was trying to walk down forwards, like you would on a staircase.  While I consoled her, I pointed out another child coming down the ladder and pointed out that she was going backwards.  Immediately, Caroline looked at me and said, "Mommy! I want to go back and try again."  And that's what she did - she climbed up, walked around, then turned herself around and backed down the ladder, beaming proudly and squealing, "Look, Mommy! I did it!"  Yup, no worries about her being too nervous to get back on the horse.

When we went inside, we got to sit down and wait for some special guests - Princess Anna and Queen Elsa of Arandelle!

The children's attention did not falter for even a moment, except maybe when I made the cardinal error of singing along to a song that was CLEARLY meant for Anna (or Elsa).

During balloon animals, Daniel asked for a doggy, and when Anna was through, she gave it to Max.  Max teased her, "No, that's for Daniel.  I'm Max!"  Anna then asked if they were twins and he shook his head vehemently and said, "No, we not."  Then, later when we asked to pose for the group picture, Saoirse's mom introduced them as "the triplets" and Anna laughed and said, "So you're NOT twins!"

On Sunday, we went to a SF Parents of Multiples outing at a city playground across the street from a fire station.  It was truck washing day and the officers were really gracious to let the kids check out the truck.

At the playground party, in addition to the playground, there was a jumpy house and a face painter.  Daniel and Max were afraid of the face painter last time around and totally snubbed her this time, but Caroline made up for it by getting three separate bits of "art".

And then we went out for ice cream in the Inner Sunset, at which point Caroline took a moment to read the sandwich board outside of a used book store, and to look totally cool.