Backyard Barnyard Ballyhoo

Nicky has quite the love of animals, so for his first big hoopla of a birthday party, we decided to have a little petting zoo of sorts come to the house, and we invited a bunch of kids from Nicky's preschool.  Momma stayed up late the night before the party prepping the cupcakes, and Daddy stopped at a feed store on the way home from the fire station to pick up the hay for which the kids could sit...and later walk and jump on...who knew something so simple would turn out to be such a fun game.  Kids can be so easy at times!

Here's a picture of the birthday boy as he waited for his friends to arrive...

The backyard all decorated...we started at about 9am...it was finally ready around 1pm!  Sheesh...all that work to just be cleaned up in 30 minutes!

Stephanie, the lady from Grisham Farms was great - if you live in the DFW area and are looking for a fun birthday party idea, I highly recommend them.  She tooke each animal out of its cage and talked about each one before letting them all take turns petting them.  She was very patient with the kids and new exactly how to talk to them and keep things under control.  I was also quite impressed with the restraint the kids showed and how well they all waited their turn.

I will speak for every mom there when I say "Aw!  I want one!!!"  This little guy was soo cute and Nicky thoroughly LOVED feeding him his bottle.  Stephanie told us although he is a baby pot-bellied pig, he's actually too old to still be eating from a bottle, but it's just too adorable to watch so she keeps doing so...and I agree!

After the presentation, several of the animals were allowed to "roam free" for the kids to play with.  I asked Kris if we could have a "duck and chick" ala Chandler and Joey from Friends, but sadly, he said no.  Can you believe that?!  How can you say no to such cute little critters?

Here's Nicky with one of his countrymen...a Russian tortoise.

A bottle of hand sanitizer later...we had some yummy cupcakes (if I do say so myself! I suppose I should thank Pillsbury, but I'm the one that did the mixing and baking, so I'm gonna take some credit!)

Blowing out the candle...4's just too many for a little cupcake...

We I filled Nicky's sand/water table full of oatmeal, barley and quinoa - all nice and grainy feeling things and stuff I thought might be appropriate for farm animals to eat.  It was the hit of the party!

Not to be outdone was the walk along the hay and jump off game.  It's just like kids to find something fun to do out of nothing much at all.  We definitely got our $28 worth out of those things!

Little by little, the kids left with their little goody bags and we cleaned up the carnage and headed off to dinner.  If the fact that Nicky slept until 9:30am the next morning, and only woke up then because I woke him up, is any evidence that the party was a ton of fun, then I'll take it!  He says he wants to do the same thing again for his party next year...only with cows.  Um...we'll have to think about that one!