Year 2, Day 203: Keturah's Belated 9th Birthday Party!

Saturday, July 22nd, 2017

We had to wait to host Keturah's birthday party because one of her best friends wasn't available until now.  I felt like because it was so much later, I got pretty lazy on planning it and was thinking about the details way too late in the game.  I was saying to myself, "Oh yeah, I have to get a cake!" 4 days before the party.  "Oh yeah, we usually do this or that during the party" 2 days before the party and it would require another trip to the store.  I guess I haven't been part of the party throwing game for awhile.  Whoops! And we moved, so I have that for an excuse.  It's a good thing Keturah is old enough to plan party games, pick out the order of events, decorate, make signs, etc.  She was also very content with whatever we came up with.

We did have a snafu with the cake.  I had ordered it online through Kroger, and although the phone number of the store matched, I'm not sure the address did.  Anyway, we went at 11 am Saturday morning to pick up the cake, and they inform us that they never got the order!  Ugh!  We stayed calm and picked out a premade cake and asked them to put the Frozen decorations on it and the writing we wanted.  I don't know if it was intential or not, but we ended up just paying for the cake and not the extra decorations and such.  We saved $6 or so off of the custom online order.  Woot!  Woot!  We also found the balloons already blown up for $1 at the dollar store!  Cheapest birthday balloons I've ever purchased!  Even goody bags didn't cost much.  As you will see, everything else was pretty simple, too.

We had 4 girls come, Lizzy and Livia, who are sisters that live in the neighborhood, Jordan, a friend from church that has been Keturah's friend since birth, and a new friend, Sarah, who Keturah has gone to choir with this past year.  Three of the girls are very shy/introverted, and Jordan, was the life of the party lol.  She's a lot of fun, shall we say, in a great way!

The biggest difference this year was that Jared wasn't here.  It was the first time that Daddy wasn't around for a party we host at home.  And only one mom stayed, so it was a very quiet party.  We had Justin and Abishai as our token boys.  Oh, and Socks of course.  But everything was still ready on time and was good enough for Keturah's taste.

Handmade signs showing the way.

Streamers, also showing the way.  Funny thing was that Keturah was holding the roll of crepe paper in such a way that the middle was unraveling!  I spent 15 minutes rerolling it all!

The dining room came together pretty nicely!  All decorations were from previous years.  The plates and cups were bought 2 years ago for last year's party that didn't happen because we were moving.  Keturah labeled the sets of plates with "appetizers" and "cake."

Juice boxes as normal. It was so hard keeping Benaiah and Abishai out of them and the food!

Goody bags!

Follow the pink streamers!

Keep going!

The end of the streamers took you outside to this bucket of sand toys I bought for Benaiah's 3rd birthday party when he was in love with Nemo.  Yup, still in the original packaging 12 years later.

Keturah had many stations including archery, pool, arts and crafts, food, etc.

Keturah loves her salty foods, so we had cheese balls, sour cream and onion chips, regular chips and cheddar chex mix.

Keturah likes to use Daddy as a gymnastics prop.

Aw, birthday party hugs!

Just another example of how we encourage our kids to climb the walls.  And Abishai is NOT terrified like the others were when Jared would do this to them.

We also had watermelon.

Keturah got to pick out the balloons, so a colorful butterfly...

....an emoji balloon (Keturah loves emjois!)...

...and sticking with the theme, Elsa, Anna and Olaf

Keturah put more deocrations n, including the Olaf cupcake tooth picks and edible snowflakes.

The craft table ended up not being used, but I loved how Keturah set it up!  Very thoughtful!

She even fanned out the paper!  Grandpa Johnson would be proud of that!

She even had little strips of paper explaining the different stations.  And when I was putting the tableclth n the table, Abishai was playing nearby, looked up and said, "Mommy, Barbie!"  Yes, son, it's Barbie.

Sitting in the water table, again!  But I finally found the real drain plug for it in my desk stuff.

Pool and sprinkler fun.  It was pretty warm, so we didn't stay out too long.  In years' pass, we would take everything outside like the food table and open presents there as well.  But I can't handle the heat as well as I used to.  And there's not a lot of things to do outside either.  But we are getting there.  Keturah even put the hose on the frog twister game all by herself!

Snack, cake, and present time!

Brothers Justin and Abishai trying to stay out of the way.

Keturah loved giving out the goody bags, and had decided beforehand who was to get what.  But they did trade things afterwards.

9 trick candles again!  And they actually worked, as in, they came back on after she blew them out!

New and old friends.

Singing the "Happy Birthday" song.

Keturah got doll clothes for her new doll and a diffuser necklace to put essential oils in on a little soaking pad.

Homemade cards.

Gorgeous doll dress.  The other set was a beach themed one.

Girls playing with their treat bags and Keturah with her new doll clothes.

The aftermath.

Having some more outdoors time.

Joanna Grace (the doll) in her new outfit trying out the tire swing.

And she also carefully dipped her toes in the water of the frog game.  Then I told Keturah never to do that again because who knows what our water will do to her hair and body.

Vegging out watching "Inside Out" while Abishai went down for a late nap.  Therefore we missed church that evening and had to go the next morning (which is another crazy story in and of itself).

Sarah got to have a sleepover with Keturah, so they managed to find a cozy spot among the boxes piled high in the fireside room.  That room will be finished when the bathroom project is done and I can bring in my other bookcase.

And of course, the morning after, they all eat leftover breakfast cake.

Clean me up, Mom! Now!

Sarah was teaching Keturah how to play Cat's Cradle, a string game I learned at her age!  

Overall, I think it was a lovely day, even the weather cooperated just fine.  I powered through running the last minute errands in the morning, running the party, and even having a meeting for nursery volunteers in the evening.  We all rested hard on Sunday.  Happy 9th Birthday, Keturah!