Haleigh's 4th Birthday Party

I feel like I'm slowly catching up with all that happened in the busy month of May. On the Saturday following Haleigh's birthday we had a birthday party with all her friends. It took us a while to decide what type of party she wanted. For the longest time she wanted a Wall-E party, but then after she saw Monsters vs. Aliens she wanted; you guessed it, a Monsters vs. Aliens party. Then we happened to watch Marley and Me and her mind was then changed again......how in the world do you throw a Marley and Me birthday party? Well, I finally talked Haleigh into a Jungle party because it would be easy to find decorations and invitations (or so I thought) because of the general nature of the theme. I ended up finding a lot of cute things from the dollar store which crossed over into the Luau genre but it still looked "jungley". I even found some blow up monkeys to hang from the ceiling and that turned out really fun. My friend, Kara lent us a monkey bouncy house and some really cute jungle decorations as well. I think the party was a hit. We had it set up in different stations with particular games that the kids could play. We rotated two groups of kids around to the bouncy house, refreshment station (with watermelon and grapes), Hippos in the mud game (much like musical chairs but the kids would crawl on their hands and knees through the "mud" and whoever got caught in the mud was out), Feed the Animals game, animal toss game, and a dinosaur dig game. I had Jungle Book playing on the television and I played the Madagascar 2 CD for the kids to listen to during the party. I found a really cute snake cake in one of my sister's cookbooks a while back and it turned out perfectly for the party. Especially because Haleigh loves snakes so much. After we played games we came inside and opened presents and then lit the candles for a hearty rendition of Happy Birthday. Haleigh loved being in the spotlight and it took about three or four times to blow out her candles. I think the party was a success and the kids were happy to all go home with a jungle gift bag and an inflatable monkey with a balloon at the end. My friend and Haleigh's primary teacher, Lyndsey was kind enough to come and take photos of the whole event so that was one thing I didn't have to worry about at all. Thanks to all who came and made Haleigh's party such a fun time. Thanks to all who helped me with ideas, pictures, decorations, and helping the kids play games. I appreciate and love you all....and so does Haleigh.

I hope you enjoy the slide show of photos that were taken at the party. They all turned out beautifully. If you want to view bigger versions of the photos I think you can click on the slide show itself and it will take you to the link for better viewing. To those that have children in the photos I probably have more photos of your child besides the ones that are in the slide show. If you want me to email you copies of the photos of your kids I would be happy to.