Karina's Birthday Party and Truck Day

It's been a fairly busy time around here, so we are just now getting to update the blog on some of the big events that have happened recently. First up is Karina's birthday. The Saturday after her 7th birthday, we hosted a bunch of her friends for a birthday party at our house. Last year we dealt with bad weather during her party which meant cramming a bunch of hyperactive kids into our house. This year, the weather cooperated and the kids all had a good time playing outside where they could be as loud as they wanted.

Everyone got several swings at a piñata (it's a cute hedgehog with flowers on its head in case that isn't clear).

It held up reasonably well, and didn't fall down. Here are the kids after the candy started falling out - it was slightly concerning that they would run in while someone was still swinging the wiffle ball bat.

Lydia liked being included and she took her turns too.

We had 48 cans of silly string for them to spray at each other. A month later, and I think there are still remnants of the silly string in the yard. I made clear on the invitations that the kids should wear clothes that parents were OK getting sprayed with silly string, though some of the outfits still seemed too nice to me.

Instead of cake this year, Karina requested ice cream sundaes with all kinds of toppings. I think it went over well (and I am very glad that they were able to eat it on the deck).

The girls then got to wrap each other up in toilet paper to be mummies and we had a short race. It was difficult to wrap them up without the toilet paper breaking, but the silliness of it was fun. Here is Orly, our next door neighbor and Karina's best friend wrapping Karina up.

All the mummies in front of the trampoline starting line for the race.

We closed out the party with some tug of war. You can really get a sense of the carnage wrecked on our lawn with all the toilet paper and silly string scattered around. It started to rain 20 minutes after the guests left, so it was a mad scramble to get as cleaned up as we could. The party was a success overall.

Karina's first grade class held their play. Last year they did Seussical the Musical (all about Dr. Seuss characters) and had fun dancing actions to go with all the songs they sang. This year was a production titled "Everyone Smiles in the Same Language" that was considerably less fun both for the kids and the audience. Oh well. Karina did great with her part.

Karina and Orly with a well-earned popsicle after their performance.

Baltimore hosted a big truck day full of city construction equipment, snow plows, garbage trucks, fire engines, etc. gathered together.  The kids got to climb around, sit inside, and experience the big trucks first hand.  Derek especially has been obsessed with the construction equipment he sees every day in our neighborhood as there are a few new houses being built, so we figured he would be over the moon there. However, once we got there, we found that Derek liked looking at the trucks, but was scared to go into the cabs.  Perhaps it was too high up or maybe too noisy from the kids who made it into the trucks only to find there was nothing to do there except honk the horns.

The girls took a ride on the back of a stationary garbage truck.

Derek was not having a particularly fun time in the cab. Karina and Lydia liked it more.

The construction equipment was more fun. The wheel loader's tires were bigger than Lydia.

The buckets and shovels were fun to climb in.

Karina was adventurous and climbed up the boom of a backhoe. Then she looked at her dirty hands and decided maybe she wasn't so adventurous after all.

Derek was too scared to go and sit in the cab of the wheel loader by himself. He did OK once I climbed up there with him though.

Climbing up this trailer that was lower to the ground was much less scary for Derek.

He was very proud of himself.

Sitting in the cab of a truck.

"Taking turns" sitting in the grass cutter/lawn mower.

Lydia liked having levers to pull.

Sitting in the back of a sprayer truck (I think).

Karina and Derek went with Tanja out onto a police boat in the harbor.

The reason Lydia and I didn't go out to the boat was because Lydia decided that she really wanted to have a balloon animal or shape, so I joined the long and slow moving line. Over an hour later, it was finally our turn, and Lydia finally got her purple balloon sword. Karina got a pink one too.

Derek was not going to be left out, so his sword was green. He almost made it back to the car before he popped his.

Derek has also gotten 3 new molars. He is up to 19 teeth now.