Great Party!

Yesterday, we celebrated Maya's 8th birthday with a big party at the Social Hall at our church in Lanse. Mandy had a theme of an Ice Cream Sundae Social for Maya and many of her friends and classmates and boy, it all worked out great!

There were balloons galore all over the hall and the kids had a great time grabbing at the cords to them and seeing how many they could each collect.

Here's Kurtis, Emmy Jo, Hunter and Maya capturing some balloons early on at the party!

Here's the guest of honor standing in front of her "self-portrait" as the kids all got a chance to play "Pin the Bow" on Maya -a little remake of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey!"

Then there was a hectic game of Musical Chairs and Maya and Abby -the little girl in the print dress -were the last two contestants. On the last round though, Abby came out the winner!

This was followed by a Limbo contest and you can see there were some good contortionists present yesterday.

Here's Kurtis doing his interpretation of the "Limbo Swim" as he insisted he had to lie down on the floor -regardless of how how (or low) that pole was, and then, "swim" under the stick!

After the games, came the cupcakes and "make-your-own" ice cream sundaes! Here's Mandy and Maya's TSS, Miss Britt, scooping out ice cream and helping the kids put their choice of toppings on their ice cream then.

Here's Jessika, Khandace and Maya lining up to get their cake and ice cream. The kids really did seem to enjoy the opportunity to experiment with their toppings on the ice cream a bit. (There were no complaints so that's how I came to that conclusion!)

Here's Maya and several of her girlfriends enjoying their cake and ice cream -Jaden, Sydney, Jessika, Tayla, Maya and Khandace.

Some of the guests at the party....

Cousin Alex (my older grandson), Maya's big half-sister, Kate, Uncle Clayton and his girlfriend, Elizabeth.

This is Aunt Kathy, helping Ashlyn and Carlea with their treats.

Anyone need a therapist? We had three there -Miss Randi and her little guy, Mason, Miss Dawn (who is Kurt's TSS) and Miss Renee (who Kurtis long ago nicknamed "Trouble") all came to help Maya celebrate the occasion too!

Then, it was time for the presents and here's Kurtis, supervising Maya as she opened her gifts.

The tie-die kit got a little extra interest from Maya's TSS, Miss Britt, as they did some tie-dying of shirts one day this summer for an indoor activity -one that met with lots of approval from Maya and she's keen on the idea of doing more of that again!

From books, to cds and dvds -music, movies -plus cool toys for the "artist" side of Maya,a fashion doll,  clothes, some fancy boots, and a snazzy bag, even an IPod Shuffle,  there was also this -from the four therapists! (Mandy's not sure if they got that for Maya to enjoy or for her to curse them once she gets it going and doing the Karaoke thing! Earplugs will be a new item on the "to purchase" list, I think!)

But the main theme of the party was that everyone was to bring a food item, non-perishable things, and those things would all be taken and donated to the local Food Bank.

Judging by the amount of food items given, I'd say that there was a darned good bit of merchant financing that took place! This morning, Mandy and Ken took the food to the Food Bank and the stuff filled a cart to almost overflowing, causing the attendant there to comment "You got all this from a birthday party?"

Yep, we sure enough did! How nice it was that people who came brought those food donations and for Maya to learn there is a very good gift that comes from giving, not just receiving!

Here's all the guests -except for Hunter and his little sister, Mikayla (who had to leave before we got a picture of the group). From left to right, there's Ashlyn, Carlea, Khandace, Sydney, Tayla, Maya, Jaden, Ana, Jessika, Abby and Bradley and there's little brother, Kurtis, seated on the floor in front of Maya.

What a great bunch of kids they were! Played together so nicely, and from the squeals of laughter, a good time was enjoyed by all. Many thanks to the parents who brought these children to share the occasion with Maya and her family -for all the gifts and especially for the donations to the Food Bank too!

All very much appreciated!