Chris is out of town and after having the kids all morning yesterday, teaching a Fresh Class, doing a ton of laundry, movie night with the kids, and just overall having a pretty long day I ended up staying awake really late to get some personal photos edited. I uploaded some photos the other day and saw that my personal unedited  photo folder was nearing the 800 mark which is SO depressing. That means that I have almost 800 photos of my kids that I loved enough to save (I delete MOST of the personal photos I take b/c I know I can’t have thousands of photos each month) but haven’t made time to touch. Being busy for Fresh Art means my family is surviving financially and that is the BIGGEST blessing but it also means that my personal stuff just gets over-looked. I’m the plumber with a leaky faucet you know? So I curled up in bed with a good movie and my laptop last night.

I should have probably started at the beginning of my photo folder or the end but instead I thought I would start with Gray’s party because it was SO much fun and so many of you might want to try this before summer is over! A super soaker party is totally something you could do without it even being someone’s birthday! Just a fun summer get-together!

This was the quick invite I threw together and emailed to our family and closest friends. He’s still too young to really have many friends his own age so we hold off on friend birthdays until pre-K. I just snapped the photo of him in our backyard… he was aiming at Daddy which gave me that truly happy face he’s sporting! Chris ran back and forth behind me!

All we did to prepare for the party was get out buckets, tubs and a little pool we borrowed from my parents so there would be “re-filling stations” all around our yard. I also made sponge bombs by cutting sponges and tying the strips together with bakers twine (you can see Gray pelting Bailey with one in the top photo of the collage)… these were easy to make, cheap (dollar store sponges) and such a huge hit! The BEST part of his party was that ALL of the adults got into it! SO fun to watch the grandparents, C’s Aunt, our friends, etc all run around with water guns! We were all laughing so hard! Oh and if you look at that one little photo towards the top of the collage you can see Riley spraying a big chunk of ice… I froze big bowls of water with plastic animals/bugs in them and the kids had to race to get the animals out! This is a great activity for little guys!

Paw Paw was Gray’s re-filler and those four photos make me laugh so hard! That last one with him just getting pelted is hysterical!

About halfway through the fight we brought out the bucket of water balloons I’d filled that day… the kids LOVED that part!

One of my favorite parts of the whole party was when Bubba (C’s dad) got there in his rain coat and came out with this huge gun to attack the kids! They all went crazy chasing him around the yard trying to get him! Funniest part? He forgot to take off his loafers and put his flip flops he’d brought on! Seeing him run around in that rain coat with his swim trunks on and then loafers/socks was cracking us all up! We seriously have the BEST parents in the whole world… they aren’t afraid to get out there and PLAY with our kids! I treasure that!

I filled some water guns with food coloring and water for painting. That was fun but messy!

I love this shot of Gray trying to fill his bucket with bubbles!

The week before the party we moved some things around in our garden and had all of these blocks left over so Chris made the kids a fort/castle wall in the backyard (BEST idea ever!)… it worked awesome at the party!

Gray’s obsession right now is BATMAN so every gift he opened that was Batman themed made him SO happy! He does this little “raise the roof” type dance that cracks me up! I need to video tape it b/c it’s so cute!

Let me just tell you that there are NO party supplies for a water gun party! HA! So I drew a super soaker in Illustrator, shrunk it down, made lots of little copies, colored them with pencils, cut them out, glued them to popscicle sticks and stuck them in cupcakes. Not perfect but they worked!

Gray was so funny when we sang… SO embarrassed! The best part of this photo are his painted nails! HA! Someday this will REALLY embarrass him!

It was seriously the best party ever! The kids played in the water all night while we BBQed, chatted with the adults and watched them all play (after the fight was over). And during the water fight I have never laughed so hard or for so long. It was a blast!