Party time!

When planning his party, Cole decided early on that he wanted to have a pool party. I think he wanted to be the first of our kids to be able to throw a pool party at our house, so he jumped at his opportunity to one-up his sisters. The only problem with that is that, although it's typically hot in Arizona, the pool is still way too cold to swim in early March. So we decided to postpone the party for a month, and threw it the first weekend in April. I've talked about the drama behind his birthday invitations here, so we already knew it wasn't going to be a big party so we focused instead on making sure our boy had fun. At party time, our neighbor's kids came over (they have an 8 year old girl and 10 year old boy, so they've been a main staple in our lives since moving in here), and another neighbor family showed up as well. The weather cooperated really well, and it was nice and sunny, almost even hot, and the pool, while cold, was warm enough for the kids.
 

Jason and I focused on the food, and there was a ton. We barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers along with a ton of fruit and other goodies. We sat and ate and visited with the neighbors and had a good time.

 Cole and I drove all over looking for a Harry Potter cake. You would think with the movies that it would have been easy to find. We finally went to Walmart looking for some toys that I could put on top of the cake and just make it myself when I decided to look at the bakery there.

 When it came time to sing before blowing out candles, I counted to three for us to sing, and Cole blew out his candles. Silly boy. We had to relight before singing and letting him go again.

 Poor Charlie wasn't too thrilled with the cake part of the party because we had to lock him up. I have to say, though, he was really good for the most part. It's hard to throw a party at your house when you have a crazy Beagle.

The goodie bags matched the cards, and Cole really liked them. I got to use a free Harry Potter font I had found online, and found out that it is pretty cute.

Eventually the neighbor family left, but then some other family friends showed up after their son's baseball game, and not long after that, my family that lives in Blythe came as well (talk about coincidence; they needed to go to a store here in Phoenix and wanted to stop by since they were out this way anyway so we were really excited they came the day of his party--and even nicer that they were able to eat up some of the food we had prepared since we had way too much).

 Poor Linds. I had to include this picture because she had the bluest lips! She kept wanting to jump back in the pool all day long.


At the end of the day, Cole said it was his best birthday party ever, so although he didn't have a lot of friends here, it was a good time, and we were happy to be able to celebrate our favorite boy.