28 goldfish later . . .

A week ago, we didn't have anything but this banner for Jack's party, so we pulled this all together quickly! I was worried that it was going to look like an afterthought, but it came together quite nicely, if I do say so myself. And, thanks to family who brought a lot of the food, it was really inexpensive! I'm pretty sure that this banner was the priciest thing I purchased!


We had it in Applewood Lodge at camp, which was nice because our house isn't big enough to hold that many people! Jack didn't really get what was going on, but he LOVES being around lots of people so he was enjoying it. I really wanted it to be fun for him (rather than overwhelming).

I didn't really have a theme, other than . . . um, frogs and bugs? Or maybe summer? You decide.

Here's the invitation:


I cut up those cheap, fake grass welcome mats into little patches to put on all of the tables. Then I put a bowl (borrowed from the camp) with goldfish and some rubber frogs and bugs on the grass. The only problem was that I bought fish on Saturday and they all died. We bought more on Sunday and they died, too. I sent my brother to the store early Monday morning to buy the last batch and all but one of them lasted until the end of the party. I was worried that our guests would be eating their lunch and watching fish float belly up in the bowl of water in the middle of their table. Yum. My mom suggested giving a prize to the table who had at least one fish alive at the end of the party!


We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, and thanks to my mom and Kyle's mom, we had quite a spread of food!

Jack helped me open one of his presents and then played with the beach ball the rest of the time while I opened the rest of them! Everyone knows him so well that he got a lot of doubles and triples of toys! This is one spoiled loved kid!

Maria made the cupcakes and they were delicious. Incredible. People are still talking about how good they were. I added the frog eyes.


Jack liked them too.

Jack was so tired at the end of the party, that he kept curling up in my arms and trying to sleep. But when we got home, he refused to nap. Sugar high, maybe?

It was a great celebration! I was choking back tears when we were singing happy birthday. How is it possible that it's been a year already?! You can see all of the pictures from his party here.