The Party

This afternoon we had a birthday party for Cale, his friend Chris (ok, my friend Jeni's son), and Chris' immediate male line of dad and grand-dad. Cale will be 1 in just over 2 weeks, Chris turned 2 last week, and the dads don't have to admit age. With the season, lots of people were sick (or maybe scared off by the forecast of blizzard at 4 pm that wasn't), so we had extended family and our neighbor Maria with her two girls over. 14 adults, 6 kids, and our basement wasn't crowded.

Baking for the party was interesting because both birthday babies have allergies. The train cakes were yummy even without milk, soy (in margarine), eggs, barley, or oats. However, allergy avoidance led to fairly healthy party snacks! Other than cake, we had fresh fruit and veggies, and rice chips with fresh guacamole.

Karston loves parties! Jeni brought over a hopping ball (a ball with a handle that kids can sit on to hop all around), and Karston hopped most of the afternoon and all evening. He loved playing with the other kids in our basement (he's Chris' height but weighs much less, and he's nearly four, almost twice Chris' age). The inflatable palm tree forest held up to rough kid play remarkably well! Karston asked if Chris' big brother Will (only 5 weeks older than Karston) could stay. Actually, he asked that with both arms wrapped around Will so Will couldn't go anywhere! We had to distract him with the hopping ball. Karston really liked Cale's birthday present of stacking bath cups. Bath play is a big hit around here; a fast bath takes us an hour.

Cale, who also didn't nap but is young enough that that really matters, didn't work the room as much. However, Cale did show me his two new favorite games with Amy, flick and mountain climbing. For flick, once he's eaten enough chips, Cale likes to flick small chip bits off of Amy's knee and laugh. Baby giggles are great, and from the sound of it, so is this game. Cale also likes to climb people sitting on couch mountain. He started sitting on the floor, then pulled himself upright. With some help from Amy, Cale climbed into her lap. Then, standing on the couch, he was just determined to climb over the back to see out the window. And was pretty happy to start over on the floor, ready for more mountain climbing again. Cale really liked his spinning race car toy, especially chewing on the handle, but also watching he cars go around.