Third Times the Charm-Happy Bithday Sydney Jay

I love birthdays and holidays and all of the fun planning and details that go along with. SO back in March, Sydney and I began discussing "theme" options for her birthday party this year (we do friends parties on the evne years and then special family adventures on the odd years). Of all of my themes Sydney quickly grabbed onto having a teddy bear picnic- so in my mind (which thinks in themes-its a little weird) I had the whole thing planned out with the date of Saturday April 30th in mind- well. . .what I had not planned on was Sydney getting invited to another birthday party for the exact time- so plan B- after whining about to everyone, my little sister helped me come up with a new plan to pitch to Syd- a camping party- Syd bought into it real quick and now with a a new theme I went into planning mode- that is until I looked at the weather report. SNOW! or at the very least balmy temperatures of 42 degrees for our camping party. AHHHHH!!!!! So quick phone calls to all of our guests and on Wednesday we switched the party to Thursday (her actual b-day) instead of Friday. CRAZY!

Party Details: We bbq hot dogs, had watermelon and chips- all her favorites. Instead of cake Sydney wanted pudding, so dirt cups fit right in with our theme and we rounded out the evening with s'mores
Games: while I had planned on some, we ended up not needing them, the kids just played and played-especially with the fish
Fish:so when I told my co-worker I wanted to do a fishing themed game at the party she told me how her sister buys the little feeder fish for parites and the kids love it. Oh, while an amazing idea and probably the hit of the party-it was also to biggest stress for me. Background: On Wednesday night, I take all 3 kids to Walmart for a little one stop shopping. We go back to the pet department where I order 15 fish. I only needed 12 and felt 3 extra would be a good enough buffer-ha! So we are finishing up our shopping when i felt a little water on my leg as Sydney yells I am sorry it was accident! BAM! She had dropped the bag and now there are 15 fish flopping all over the eisle! Luckily there was a worker guy who helped me as well as this crazy lady (seriously she was unstable) collecting the fish. We finally get the fish back in a new bag and I bring them home, place them in a vase. Well, the kids and I decide they might be hungry so I smash up a peice of Rosco's dog kibble and sprinkle it on top. The fish go crazy eating it up. I leave the room to change Jane's diaper and come back to Cash and Syd feeding the fish more kibble-whole sized kibble- I start trying to sccop the kibble feast out, when I realize we already have 3 fish dead! With 2 quickly following! By morning I was down to 7 fish. My plan was to leave work early pick up so more fish at Petco, well I go toPetco and they have some sort of infection with their fish (which were half the price of Walmart)and they were not for sale. SO I quickly hop on the freeway to go to Petsmart, I buy 20 more fish-figuring they only have to live 2 hours until the party starts and dash home. By the time the party started I had 5 more dead. But, in the end it was a blast and all the kids got to take a fish and a flashlight home.
Update:
everyones fish are still alive and well-3 out of 4 we were left with are dead!
Decorations:orginally we were going to set-up our tent, but with some scary rain clouds lopoming, Johnny quickly built 2 teepees (and also made me a table-man he's good)

So overall it was a lot of fun!