Birthday Party Playgroup

Since Kaylee shares her birthday month with three of her little friends, we decided to do a joint birthday party with our playgroup. One of the moms, Laurel, hosted it at her house... it was so much fun! (And also helped with my vow to not go so overboard with birthday parties this year. As most of you know, I have a tendency to get a little (okay A LOT) carried away!

The girls started out with a butterfly hunt. Laurel hid little toy butterflies throughout the yard and the girls had to find them and put them in their bag. Kaylee's little face lit up every time she found one!

And here's Kaylee with her friends... very happy to show off their findings!

Next, the girls played with the parachute. Kaylee was a bit grumpy at first and not so sure she wanted to participate (I think Daddy wore her out last night playing so she was a little sleepy) but once she joined in, she had a blast! Their favorite part seemed to be riding on top as we spun the parachute in circles.

And of course, no Kaylee/Anna/Ava get-together would be complete without a round of ring-around-the-rosies!

For the gift exchange, each of us brought one wrapped present. We attached gems in different colors to each present then the girls dug through the sand to find matching ones. Whichever color they found was the present they got. What a cute idea, huh?

Kaylee was very excited when she came across her gem... I thought she was going to jump in the sandbox to get it out! She was also very happy to find out that all her hard work paid off with a present. (Unfortunately I had some "operator-error" issues with my camera and didn't get any pictures of her opening her present... let's just say it's not a good idea to be in manual mode when you don't know you're in manual mode... all my inside pictures turned out BLACK!)

Kaylee was also very excited about her ladybug cupcake....

....singing "Happy Birthday"... and blowing out her candle!

It was such a fun day. I'm so thankful that Kaylee has such good little friends whom are so close to her in age. I guess I should also be thankful that she's still at an age where she doesn't mind sharing the spotlight! haha :-) We still have her actual birthday (the 26th) and a little family barbecue planned for the 29th - so she has lots of celebrating left to come. I really do plan to keep things simple though!