Bowling Birthday, and Dorothy is 3 Months Old Today

I will never, ever complain about the cost of a Pump It Up or Little Gym or even Chuck E. Cheese birthday party again. Because that extra 2-250-ish hundred dollars? Is what's keeping those damn kids happy and entertained.  Without dedicated party staff, the kids ran amok and the party room looked sad because we didn't know we had to bring stuff like cute plates and balloons.  When the LG says all you need is a cake and a camera, they are setting you up to FAIL when you try to only bring those same two things to an inferior venue.

Harry and Jack loved it, though. 

And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

Dorothy didn't mind either.

Bumpers made Jack a pretty OK bowler.

I didn't want to post any pictures of other kids, so all I have is Harry and Jack before the party started.

I should have brought juice boxes because all the bowling alley had to drink was soda.  Jack has never had soda before (Harry has had Sierra Mist a few times), and orange Fanta is the best thing he's ever tasted.   One of the snowflakes needed water because he was explicitly told that he could not have soda by a parent worried about dropping him at the bowling alley. The kids got super bored (because we didn't bring anything else for them to do because we thought they bowling alley would make things fun for kids because we have only had parties at party places for kids) so we supplemented the pizza we ordered with fried bar food.  It was a hit.

Soda.  And the commemorative pin with everybody's names on it that Harry got to take home.

This morning, Dorothy's swing broke, and Ben had to make an emergency run to Target for a new one.  Because she needed one that would plug in, play music, swing two ways and woo her with a mobile, Ben had to buy the Snugamonkey for $175 which pissed us both off.  Our FP Rain Forest swing has been with us for 7 years, and Dorothy is the only baby who has ever liked it-- she needs it, in fact, to take a nap, which is why Ben had to immediately go get a new one.  It took an hour to put together.

And in that time, I decided to feed the kids lunch outside.  Do you LOVE Jack's outfit, or what?

She really liked the Snugamonkey.  Unfortunately/fortunately on our way to the party, we were going to drop the old swing at Goodwill.  Ben was putting it in the van when he noticed that a cord in the back was unplugged (this, after we both tried EVERYTHING to make the swing work for at least half an hour that we didn't really have).  He plugged the cord in, and voila!  The old swing swung again.  SO, we took the Cadillac of swings back to Target, and Dorothy is back in the used Camry of swings.  I was kind of bummed about it, but then I thought of a million more fun things to buy for $175.

Feeding the kids outside?  Genius.

I love summer!  Baby legs!

3 months old today

She would NOT smile today.

Cooper did not go to the party-- we could not even imagine chasing him around in addition to trying to keep the damn kids inside, out of the gameroom, and happy (and we totally failed at this because one of the little girls ended up crying that she wanted to go home under the table).  He did, though, spend a long time trying to make this dinosaur take his pacifier.

That's it-- the big 0-7 is over, and so is birthday season.  We are off the hook until September, which means it's time to enjoy summer!