Bowling Birthday Party

We finally had Ian's bowling birthday party today. He turned two a few weeks ago, but due to scheduling, we had to have it late. I was worried about how it would go because I invited five families with a total of seven kids. Everyone said yes until this week when two families with three kids backed out for various reasons. Two of the other families were traveling so I was worried they might not make it. Fortunately, I ran into someone on Wednesday that I had meant to invite but lost her contact info so I thought that at least two kids would be there for sure. I am happy to report that all four families who were supposed to come, came. Unfortunately, my friends from Singapore could not get on the base. Singapore is on a list of countries where you have to get pre-approval in advance to have citizens from there onto the base. I did not realize that. We felt terrible. I should have made sure that it was the same procedure. Luckily, we had the goody bags in the car so we were able to give Emma her goody bag at least. Too bad the cupcakes were already in the bowling alley.

The bowling went well. Ian didn't do very well with taking turns, but they bowled a lot. We took a break for pizza and there was only 15 minutes left of the 2 hours. There weren't any other parties after ours so we could stay at the tables as long as we wanted to but had to pay for more bowling time. We decided to do the cake and see how the kids felt. Jacob threw up. they just got back from traveling so they don't know whether it is motion sickness (that he gets) or illness. He was fine afterwards, though and everyone wanted to bowl more so they played again and had lots of fun.

I was very happy with the party. Two of Ian's friends, Jacob and Trinity, will turn two on Halloween and decided to do a joint birthday party. The cake turned out fairly well for not having my friend Heather to help and for both Curt and I having terrible headaches yesterday and part of today. The pizza was decent as well. I wasn't expecting much from bowling alley pizza. I ordered 3 pizzas originally and then changed the order to 5. We had two pizzas leftover, but at least everyone could eat freely and not worry about running out. The meat pizzas went first, followed by the cheese. The veggie pizzas were left. I put cupcakes in each box with the pizzas and sent the last two families home with them. We have lots of cake and fruit leftover, but the strawberries were a big hit as well.

So the cake:



We got the idea from here.


Bowling video. You can see the chocolate icing obscuring all the bruises he currently has on his face due to his crazy stunts (just in time for Monday's picture session):



Snacking on the lanes:



The wind in his hair:


We didn't open the presents until we got home. Easier and less trauma to the other kids. After opening presents and having another snack, I've been working on this blog post and Ian has just passed out on the floor.

Apart from my failure for my Singapore friends, it was a great day. It is also fortunate that at 2 years old kids really don;t have a great understanding of parties so her little girl was not disappointed and enjoyed playing with the bubbles when she got home.