Ben and his "Freeze Ray"

This year instead of spending days putting our house together for a kid’s birthday party, we decided to hold Ben’s 3rd birthday at the Skokie Water Park.

The water park features five slides, a sprayground, and interactive multi-level play area, and a zero depth entry pool that turns into a lap pool at the other end.

We were very lucky, it was a perfectly sunny and warm day.

Besides Jack’s 1st birthday, this is the first party we held outside of our house. I have no idea why we don’t do more of them this way. It was so easy. Most of the prep work involved me calling people and giving them our credit card number.

Confirm the number of people coming, order the food, order the cupcakes, order the gift bags, then a quick trip to costco for drinks, chips, veggie plate, and a huge watermelon and we were done. Adam packed our huge minivan to the gills this morning and we were off.

We hired a sitter to help us with all the kids, Angelica. She was great with the babies and also playful with Ben. In addition I am very lucky to have so many wonderful friends who helped hold babies. Elissa, DJ, Michelle all took turns rocking, feeding, and changing the twins.

Special thanks to Cindy for baking her signature cookie cake for Ben. It was a big hit, and there are only four small pieces left sitting in our kitchen. I’m sure they will be gone by tomorrow.

Ben had such a good time he was fighting me when it was time to go. Only the promise of opening all his presents at home got him into the car.

Happy Birthday Ben, my sweet, smiley, happy, articulate, curious, clever little boy.