Messy Messy

You may have noticed a lot of talk on this blog lately about birthdays. July hosts 3 out of 5 birthdays in my family. Plus, 4 others in our extended family.

That's 7 birthdays in one month.

I think Minnesotans get bored in October.

Anyway.

My two sweet girls are still young enough to want to share a birthday party. They were so excited about it.

So they came up with the idea to have a "Messy Party". You know, where they get to do messy things, and Mommy won't freak. out. Mommy will actually plan these messy things for them to do.

I am not a good craft mom. I fully admit it. I'd rather get on a bike and go for a ride, or sit and read a book, or dig in the dirt, than plan a craft.

Actually, I'd rather be hung upside down by my toenails than plan a craft.

So obviously, painting is a huge novelty to Corene and Ava. Crafts just don't happen in our house.

Aided by the internet (in .31 seconds, Google found 265,000 websites under the search "messy kids party"). There were lots of ideas to choose from.

We planned the messy party to beat all messy parties.

There were signs of warning.

"Messy Art" shirts were donned.

It is oh so appropriate that by total chance, Taz ended up with the only shirt that said "Messy Messy".

Hand prints and foot prints were painted Shaving cream and food coloring (who knew this would be such a hit?).

And, two, yes, two cakes. It is a really good idea, in theory, to let each of your children have their own cake, so they get to have something at the party that is their own.

Making two cakes completely took over my weekend, but who can resist creating midget barbie (who I performed major limb removal on to make the cake work, may she RIP) and a horse cake, complete with licorice reins and jellybean nose?

And then, the activity that brought out my inner OCD. 4 pounds of spaghetti, cooked, cooled, and tossed with oil. And dumped in here:

Is this not a kids' paradise?

I was enjoying myself fully until the fun play was suddenly transformed into a lively food fight. And then somehow there was shaving cream in the mix again. And all I could do was laugh. Seriously, WHEN do kids get to be this crazy and not get in trouble for it?

Check out this video. It's only 4 seconds long, but it shows just a glimpse of the fun madness that had been taking place.

After you watch it the first time, watch it again and look at Corene in the background with her pants around her ankles.

And, while you're at it, note that at the beginning of this "game", there was 4 pounds of spaghetti IN the baby pool. There looks to be maybe 1 pound in the pool now. You figure out where the other 3 pounds went. And who cleaned it up.

I promise that I did not spike the punch. It was juice and sparkling water. Promise.

It was so very fun to watch them be so filled with delight at the novelty of getting messy.

Speaking of delight.

But we are never doing this again.

It's your turn.