Miriam's birthday party, 8 years old

We finally got around to hosting Miriam's birthday party, just a little over a month after her birthday.  She wanted a jungle party.  Hooray for me since I have tons of jungle decorations left over from having a jungle theme at cub camp last year!

The cat volunteered to be part of the decorations!  She crawled INTO the decorations, hung out for a while, and then had quite a time getting OUT of the decorations.

We've got quite a bunch of jungle stuffed animals!

She invited a mix of friends from school and church.  The party lasted three hours but I think most of the girls thought it went by way too fast.  With a bunch of seven and eight year old girls there was a LOT of squealing.  As soon as the girls started showing up, there was lots of running around, going down the fire pole, getting into dress up clothes, dancing to the disco lights, and loving (torturing) the cats.  You'd think the cats would be smart enough to go hide somewhere but they kept coming back through the rooms the girls were in.  They must enjoy getting dressed up in doll clothes!

This is the closest we could get to a group shot, and we're missing two girls.  No one wanted to stop playing long enough for a photo.  We even had to give up on getting them gathered for the birthday song and just sing with who we had.  

Almost everyone piled into the hot tub for a dip.  In and out, in and out, soaking the floor and the towels.  The mail lady brought up a package while girls were taking a break from the hot tub were riding the zip line in their wet swim suits. She said it made her shiver just to look at them!  Miriam had found the sign I hung on the female port-a-pottie at camp last year "girls only" and hung it on the front door.  When Jacob got home from work and stepped onto the hot tub deck, he had a bunch of little girls yelling at him, "You can't be here!  Girls only!"  Unitimidated, he came inside anyway.

Miriam rocking to her music, using the bat for the piñata as her microphone.  The colored lights are from the disco ball on the table behind her.  

One of the girls thought the top of the fire pole would be a great place to change her clothes.  It was quite a sight to see shirt, pants and underwear progressively fall from the sky!

Presents opened, cake eaten, everyone back to playing.  Dode made a batch of kettle corn that the girls devoured.  The floors were covered with puddles and pieces of popcorn.

Miriam must be getting older because I think this is the first party where she didn't cry because people didn't want to do what she wanted to do.  She told me it was her best party ever.  I think she feels that way every year!