Van's Birthday

I'd say his birthday was a success.

Although luckily Van doesn't read the blog (yet). The day didn't go exactly as I had laid out in the last post; we skipped Bouncing Bears in favor of opening, and playing with, family presents while getting ready for the party.

Here is Van playing with his new loader and putting together his dinosaur puzzle.

 Dinosaur puzzle

A new train! This was Andy's present to Van.
Or Andy's present to Andy, it's still unclear.

Pretty soon it was noon and I dropped Van off at Preschool and started getting party decorations ready. I found these great Shark bowls, plates and cups.

I created the scavenger hunt that would lead them to Dad's garage where they would get cake and ice cream. Five clues for a 5 year old boy.

Since it was going to be dark during the hunt, I took pictures while I set it up. First clue led to the swing.

Then to the trampoline...

 Then to Svea's zip line...

Then to grandpa's shop...

 Meanwhile, the inside of the house looked like this:

Once guests started arriving, it got so busy I don't have many pictures.
First the kids, decorated the tree, here is the final product

Then all the big kids went outside and Peter drove them around with the snow machine pulling the otter sled. Andy cooked hotdogs on the grill and kept a fire going in Peter's backyard for the kids to warm up by.

I stayed inside with all the moms with babies and kids who didn't want to go outside.
One mom texted me a picture of the kids outside in the otter sled.

After they had been outside for a while, we called them in to eat stew, hotdogs, and soup.

Then once they all had eaten, we rounded up everyone interested to start the scavenger hunt. Luckily we had Suzanne, a second grader who could read the clues for us.

The scavenger hunt was a blur, but they had fun. In the end this is what they found!

Dad let them climb on his ARGO

Frank did not want to get off.

Laura hanging out with April Rose in the middle of the shop.

Suzanne and Van checking out some cool tools

By this time is was 6:15. Svea and Peter and I ran to the house and grabbed Van's presents and he opened them on the blue striped blanket.

Then Peter gave everyone (that wanted it) a ride back up to the house.

 And that was the end!
The Lunoes stayed over for a couple hours while Svea and Peter did some jobs. After all the excitement we sat them down with a movie and the girls were instantly asleep.
At about 8:30 grandpa decided we should revive the fire and roast the marshmallows we never got to during the party.
I stayed in to put Esther to bed.

All in all it was a pretty exciting day.
Here is Esther at the end, watching the train go by.