Winter Birthday Celebration

Heading out to sled!!

Roasting s'mores

Lots of boys by the fire

Kirsten and lots of boys!

Adam with his hot chocolate

Burning energy on the hill

Left to right: Dylan, Andy, Aiden, Jack B, and Jack W. (sitting)

Aiden and his sled

Enjoying some hot chocolate

Lots of boys warming up

Our lonely girl...Ms. Vanessa who is quite spunky and loves to hang out with the boys

Time for skating

Aiden and Luke

Aiden and Luke

Cake cutting time

On Martin Luther King holiday, we had a celebration for Luke, Liam, and Aiden's birthday.  We went back and forth this year trying to decide what we should do and when we would do it.  We opted to do one big party with all three boys so I checked into several local places that offer packages for birthday parties, but they were quite expensive and its hard to accommodate a large group.  I came up with the idea of doing a sledding and skating party because it seems like we need to make the most of the awesome area we have for doing this type of activity (and because its something the boys LOVE).

I found a community room at a local park about 5 minutes from our house that was very economical and more than adequate in size.  We rented the room which had an outdoor bonfire pit, giant sledding hill, and outdoor ice rink for us to use.  The boys, thankfully, loved the idea and we began putting together plans to serve hot chocolate, roast s'mores, sled, and ice skate.  They were thankfully thrilled and I was thrilled that we could invite everyone we wanted to include and not be limited as much on numbers.  I **might** have gone a bit overboard since we ended up with 28 friends of Luke, Liam, and Aiden.  We had almost 100% attendance with 18 friends of Luke and Liam and 10 friends of Aiden.  We had several siblings attend the party that are friends with all three boys.

I was even more fortunate to have three friends who offered to help as well as a couple parents who stuck around to assist so they made our gigantic number of boys a bit more manageable.  Many thanks to the girls who helped us keep the chaos under control and ensure that no one was injured during all the fun.

We purchased enough graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate for everyone to have several s'mores, we bought 100 packages of hot chocolate, and I gave everyone a choice of one of three  coffee mugs as a party favor (that doubled as a hot chocolate mug during the party).  I found some very cute coffee mugs at the Dollar Tree so it was an easy gift!

Overall, the boys left saying it was the best party they ever had so I think John and I felt like it was a success!!  I can't lie....I am glad to have the triple party over for at least another year.