A Happy Joint Birthday Party

Yes, things have been slow on the blog lately.  I've been feeling overwhelmed, tired and generally "blech" the past few weeks.  And also super busy with life and commitments.  Andrew's been sleeping poorly at night and naps and is teething, Brian's been having to work more, and we've been through a rough patch with homeschooling that leaves me drained every Tuesday/Thursday.  So the blog is one of my "commitments" that just gets sacrificed during these rough times!

I'm skipping over lots of important happenings to post these pictures from today, but I got them sorted and edited and if I wait nothing may ever get done on this blog...

Its birthday season for the extended Kornrumpf family!  Last year we just did birthday dinners with the family for each kid and called that good, but this year (Nathan especially) really wanted to have a party with friends.  Specifically his school friends, but the school has a policy that you have to invite the whole class.  Brian and I were feeling somewhat Scrooge-like about this idea, just because the kids' birthdays are so close together, we'd want to do for Sarah what we do for Nathan, and it would be in addition to the family birthday dinners.  So we proposed a joint friend birthday party with four families from church, which turned out to be the winning idea!

The party was pretty low-key.  I was frantically googling "easy party games for kids" this morning, but was coming up blank.  It turned out great, however, when one of the boys found some balloons in the hall (they were intended to decorate the mailbox, but that didn't happen), then Nathan asked for another balloon, and within a minute I was surrounded by a gaggle of kids begging for balloons.  I blew up two balloons per kid and then escaped to the room where the adults were hanging out and let the kids amuse themselves.  It worked beautifully!

The three girls...

Most of the boys...

I didn't get a picture of him, but Andrew pretty much spent he whole first half of the party in the rooms where the big kids were playing, just watching everyone and having a blast.  He had gotten his hands on a crayon, which always makes him extraordinary cheerful since its contraband for him. 

Then everyone ate lunch (hamburgers and hot dogs, cheetos and pretzels, carrots and applesauce).

Finally it was time for singing and blowing out candles.  Nathan had been asking for DAYS who would get to blow out their candles first (him or Sarah) and I wouldn't ever give him an answer.  We ended up singing to both kids together, then Sarah blew her candles out right away...

... and Nathan followed.  They had agreed on chocolate cupcakes, with purple icing for Sarah and green for Nathan (which I just realized is the same color as their rooms!). 

After all the sugar was devoured, we opened a few presents and called it a day.  And a very happy day it was too!