Nelson Family Blog: Emma's 5th Birthday Party!

Another week has passed, and we have stayed just as busy as ever. We have been constantly on the go, and our poor kids don't get to bed before 9pm very often, but we are all having a great summer so far!

This past week kept us pretty busy, with softball a couple nights, and then a weekend full of activities. Emma is loving the softball season. I usually take her with me to games on Tuesday nights, and she loves riding her bike around, playing with the other kids, and watching a little softball. It's pretty cute. Elliott is a little too much of a handful yet, so usually him and John stay home and have a boys evening.

On Friday evening, we took the kids to a Canaries' Game. They were having a family night, and they showed "The Sandlot" on the big screen before the game, and also had $1 hotdogs and beers. They also had some bouncy houses, which our kids had a blast in. For most of the actual game, the kids were either jumping in a bounce house, or eating ice cream, but we did actually watch a couple innings, and they handled it really well. We also spent some time in the open green area over by left field, and the kids really liked that. They could run around and have a little more freedom.

It was a Friday night game, so there were fireworks after the game. We had to stay until the end for those, and the kids loved them. Elliott got a little scared at first, but then he couldn't stop talking about them. He called them "color booms". It was adorable and they had so much fun. It was after 10pm when we got home, and we had two very tired kiddos to get to bed.

Saturday was Emma's birthday party, and we had such a fun day. We had her party at the Yogi Bear Resort Campground just outside of Sioux Falls. It was a pretty warm day, but that didn't stop us all from having a good time. All of our family was there, and around 10 other kids for Emma to play with.

We started off jumping on the big pillow, and then playing on the inflatables. Yogi bear came and visited the party at around 2pm, and handed out a gift for Emma and some party bags for the other kids. We then ate cake and ice cream. Then we headed for the swimming pool. We spent a good hour and a half in the pool, and all the kids had such a good time. I brought some pool toys and inflatables, and they were a huge hit. Emma loved floating around in her inflatable, pretty much the entire time and Elliott enjoyed climbing in and out of the pool and even jumping in a little. It was a little tricky watching both kids by myself, but we survived any major disasters, and had to drag them out of the pool because they were enjoying it so much.

After swimming, Emma opened her gifts. She had a Trolls theme for her gifts, and she got a lot of cute things. After gifts, it was pretty much time to head home. Both kids fell asleep before we even left the park, they were so shot. They slept for a good hour or so at home, and then Mom, Dad, Ryan, Rachel, Carlos, Elena, John, Emma, Elliott and I headed for Sickies Garage for supper. It was good, but we didn't get home until close to 8pm. So, after getting the tired, crabby kids to bed, we enjoyed a campfire and some relaxing.

Sunday was also a pretty busy day. We went to church in the morning, then we ate brunch at Hy Vee with my parents and brother, before they headed home. After some very necessary naps for both kids, we headed out to Jim and Barb's to clean up the campers for camping this weekend. It was super hot and humid out, and we spent a good 2 hours scrubbing and cleaning the camper. We were sweaty and tired after we were done, but it felt really good to have that job done.

After supper, we headed back home again. Luckily, I have today off and can use it as a catch up day. I already ran to Walmart and got some groceries for camping. Right now, it's storming outside and I am enjoying some OITNB with my feet up for a while. Also, trying to clean the house some.

This week is going to be so busy, but really really fun. We are going to the Omaha Zoo on Emma's actually birthday (Thursday) and then we are camping all weekend long at Newton Hills. It should be really fun.

Now, many, many pictures of our crazy-fun weekend!!