Dylan's Dinosaur Party

Dylan had his first real "friend" party this year.  The weird part is that many of his friends happen to be his cousins, which makes it kind of seem like a family thing.  It was a little stressful planning everything and getting it all ready since it was definitely a crazy week (which I'll probably gripe about later).  He invited his cousins on both sides of the family (Tony, Connor and Kamyn on my side of the family and Gabi, Mason, Diego, Leah & Mylo on Marcos' side of the family).  He also invited Anthony (the little boy I tend) and Kambrie and Shannon, who are friends from church.  Everyone was there except Gabi, who had another birthday party that day.  It was quite a few kids for a 5 year old party, but he wanted them all so we went for it. The kids started to arrive and played with toys until everyone got there.  Then we headed out back for a dinosaur egg hunt.  That turned out really fun.  I had put their loot in the eggs and color-coordinated them so that each person would get one egg of every color and then get one of everything we had bought for little handouts (dinosaur stamp, dino tatoos, stretchy dinosaurs, plastic dinosaurs, bubbles, dino bone candy, dino ring...I don't remember what all we bought).  They didn't quite grasp the concept of only finding 9 eggs each so we divided them up when we went inside.  After the egg hunt, we had a little fossil dig, which was pretty fun too.  I found these little fossil dinosaurs in goo that were perfect so I didn't have to create my own. We buried them in the sandbox.  Apparently we did too good of a job though because we were still missing a few at the end.  Oh well, I think it was still pretty fun.  After the fossil dig, we came in and played pin the pteradactyl on the dinosaur picture.  Then we headed out front for the pinata.  Didn't quite think that one through as neighbors on bikes start heading down to the house.  Luckily their mom noticed and called them inside.  Our neighbor on the side of us had friends over with kids though that sat there at the border of our houses ready to play.  I finally whispered to one of them that we'd throw some candy over later, but to just let the kids at the party play.  Kind of awkward, but what do you do?  Honestly, watch your children or teach them manners.  He was probably 9.  Whatever.  Anyway, that was fun and each of the kids got a turn and then Tony busted it open.  He hit it hard enough that a couple packets of candy opened up.  Strong kid!  After that, we headed inside for some cake and ice cream and then straight downstairs for presents.  Dylan LOVED everything!  He got a dinosaur, some dragons, four Little Einstein games (go fish, bingo, a memory game...) and then a scooter from Marcos' side of the family and one of those kid-proof digital cameras from my side of the family.  It was perfect!  The kids headed out back to play (which was just as fun for them as the party itself) and we gathered up their bags and dinosaur masks to send home.  It was tricky to get pictures and lead everything so we have some, but not as many as I would have liked.  Oh well, the memory is in our head as much as anything.  We also set the video camera up on the tripod during the games and presents, but I saw kids "helping" with the videography so it should be interesting footage.  I'll break that out later.  It was tricky to figure out what to do.  We have always invited family, but Dylan really wanted a friend party and the idea of having three parties made me a little crazy.  And unfortunately, my house doesn't fit 35 people very well (not with having enough room to actually do the games at least).  I was feeling a little bit judged and criticized over the whole thing until Dylan came up to me after the party and said, "Mom, thanks for my dinosaur party.  You throwed the best party ever!"  Wa-hoo!  I accomplished what I set out to accomplish.  My kid LOVED his party and wouldn't have asked for anything to be different.  So here are the pictures I did manage to snap during the fiesta.  Yep, my baby's 5 and now we're all partied out - at least for a week when Preston turns 2.  Man, what were we thinking?