Last week, Vivi's grandmother invited my entire crew to Vivi's 6th birthday party! We didn't have much time to plan, so she got gift cards. = / Hopefully she can pick out the perfect thing.
When we arrived at the party, it was in full swing. They had booked a meeting/community room and there were tons of kids! Vivi has a twin sister, as well as a sister in Emily's class, and a brother in Alice's class!
We started out at the photo booth:
But there was also a bean bag toss game, knock down the pyramid of cans, and ring the bottles. Juliet was more interested in the glow bracelets that they were using as rings. = )
The birthday girls were both flitting about, but William was able to sit next to one of his other school friends.
Vivi's grandmother told us that we could stay if we wanted, but that we could also go and come back. Since the room was very full, and it was a confined space, we chose the latter.
As we were preparing to go (telling the kids that we were leaving, and that they needed to stay in the building, etc...) the food was ready. So, I served up some hotdogs to my dear ones before we left.
We checked out the tiniest dive bar ever....Billy loved it. ; ) This was the best picture of the ones I took. We ordered the fried mac and cheese appetizer and pretzels and cheese. It was pretty good, and a great impromptu date. When we finished we played a round of pool, and then headed back to pick up our children.
The kids were in good spirits, except for Emily who had to stay inside with "the little kids" even though Alice got to go out. What I think happened was that Vivi's grandmother let Alice go out to play on the playground with the other kids, and then had second thoughts since we weren't there, so kept Emily in. Though, she didn't call Alice back, which was very upsetting to Emily. = (
This upset was not enough to ruin the party, and I think everyone had a good time.
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Luckily for Emily her I had a special event planned for her after the party. We dropped everyone off, and I took Emily to audition as an extra in a movie that's being filmed locally. I prepped her as well as I could for the long wait ahead of us, and we brought in some beads that entertained her for the first hour or so of our wait. I offered her the opportunity to leave if she wanted, but she was content to stay.
For a while she played with a photo app on my phone:
Then I gave her some riddles to solve (and eventually had to look some up on my phone.)
We then went back to the blocks for a while. As we entered hour three, I told her that we could go and call it a night. She wanted to stay on. We were both getting a bit hungry, but not long after we started the third hour, she was called up.
It was a very informal group audition, but the director told us that they were only expecting 60-100 people and 400 came through!
I'm sure that the time could be classified as a waste, but getting to spend 3 uninterrupted hours with any of my children is never a waste. I was really glad that it was just the two of us, I would not have lasted that long had I had to chase down children for three hours. = )
I think Emily had a good time, but I don't know that she wants to do it again. At least not any time soon.
later days
