Party Hardy

I celebrated my 32nd birthday with a Big Sledding Bash at our park. It felt like -29 when we woke up but we were too busy preparing food to notice.
Here's the china cabinet that we used to chill some of the beverages. The rest fit in the refrigerator (once we moved all our condiments across the street to the park refrigerator)


The first round of guests that arrived included this cutie...

His mom, MckMama, his aunt, Hilary, and blogging In Real Life friends, Esther and her sweet daughter, Emma.


Because it was so cold we didn't have to rent skis. That meant PapaBear could join the fun. He took me for a couple rides on our vintage toboggan.


Tanner went down the hill at least 20 times.


Sam preferred keeping watch over the fire with Grandpa, but I did get him to go down once with Isaac and I. Thanks Gene for keeping the fire going for so long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Bill and Trudy took a spin around the park on their skis. Talk about brave!


Seventeen of our guests, yes SEVENTEEN went sledding or skiing in sub zero temps. I was very, very impressed.

Back inside, the kids played games (This one is a relay where the kids wore big boots and mittens and retrieved a marshmallow from a bowl before handing their gear off to their teammate.)




Thanks Linda for giving Julia a hand!


Pin the nose on the snowman was a tad tamer, but still fun.



For the adults I made up a couple of games. One, we had people guess the amount of water (in ounces) that a big jar of snow would melt into. Turns out a packed full gallon jar turns into over 6 1/2 cups of water.


The other game was a family affair. Each family was given a cup with an ice cube in it and a washcloth. Their task: to melt the ice cube first. The only rule: no putting it in your mouth

I had a few more games and activities up my sleeve, but we never needed them. People spread all over the house, visiting, eating, playing.... I turned the master bedroom into a movie theater and put the train table in there to make more room in the playroom. Sam's room became the reading room, the playroom was a popular place, filled with 'new' toys...

One of the activities we didn't get to (until today) was using shaving cream as snow to drive cars around in. Judging by how messy Julia got, this was probably a good thing.



It was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday! THANK YOU EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO CAME OUT TO THE WOODS TO CELEBRATE WITH ME AND FOR BRINGING SO MUCH YUMMY FOOD!

(like these tasty meringue mushrooms Kitty brought)