Birthday Bash and Bad Weather

My baby turned 5 recently and this past Saturday was his birthday party.  We have a big family and also invite some close friends, so all in all, there is a ton of people here.  As all you know, out temps had been in the triple digits all week so we had some worries about the party.  First of all, our house is an older home, and no central air....we have window units.  Normally the window units are perfectly fine and our house is very comfortable, but after a week of it being in the 100's, our air conditioners were having a hard time keeping up.  We knew that no one would want to sit outside in that heat, but we had to find a way to at least keep the kids entertained and cool outside or the house would be packed.  We had already rented a bouncy house, as we do every year, but that would just make the kids hotter.  We had to go to plan B, add water activities.  My first idea was of course sprinklers, easy enough, but then I was out of ideas.  About 15 kids ranging in ages from 2 to 12.....so I did what any blogger would do, asked you guys on my FB page :)  Thanks to you guys I got some great ideas.  I bought a bunch of spray bottles, the ones in the travel section in the cosmetics.  The bottles were $1 a piece and so much easier to refil than squirt guns.  I wrote each kids name on theirs to avoid fighting.  Someone else told me about a business that delivers (or mails) pre-filled water balloons.......yep, soak it in.....pre-filled.....no more standing at the sink for hours trying to tie the slippery little suckers, no more getting splashed.....I had to order some.  The company is called Wet Will-E Water Balloons, and the are located near Rockford IL (for you locals).  They will deliver the balloons to you if you are in the area, but they also ship them if you are not....if you don't believe me, click on the link above and check them out.  They are really reasonably priced, I paid $50 for 500 water balloons.  They are not paying me to advertise for them, I'm just passing on their info because I think their business is a great idea, especially for people like me who hate balloons :)

So I thought we were set, sprinklers, spray bottles, water balloons.  My husband was making a last minute run to Aldi to pick up a few things and he called me. they had water slides....50% off.  Well, it was a great price and I knew my kids would use it for a long time, so we got it.

And here is the bounce house we rented

So we were ready to beat the heat, but nothing prepared us for what happened next.  Within a half hour of everone arriving, rain started pouring down....POURING.  At first the kids didn't know what to do, but ater a few minutes they decided it was really fun to play in the rain.  They played out there until we heard thunder, then 15 dripping wet kids ran through the house.  After a short while the rain stopped, so the kids went out again, and again it started to pour.  it was crazy.  I was planning on setting the kids table and benches outside but now they couldn't eat out there.  We made do with the space we had inside.  After eating the kids ran right back out.  Once the rain stopped I thought we might as well to the water balloons before these kids get sick of being wet....it was a blast.

After that we had another game in mind.  We told the kids to pick up as many balloon pieces as they could find and the one with the most (they had to count them) won $5.  We ended up having a second and third place winner as well, and a yard that had no balloon pieces left. 

Then we did the cake.  I have to tell you guys, normally I just go get one at Wal Mart or Sams, this time I ordered somewhere else.  My mother in law told me that her friend's daughter makes really nice cakes.  I checked out her website and decided to order from her for two reasons, the cakes were amazing and I would be supporting another local small business.  Check out what she came up with for my son

This cake was almost too cool to cut into, and it was so moist and delicious!  I will definately order from her again.  If any of you locals are interested, the lady's name is Susan and you can check out her site by clicking HERE.  Her email address is on her site as well as pictures of some of her work.

My little man had a good birthday, and though the weather was nuts, I think everyone had a good time :)