block party

saturday night we went to our annual neighborhood block party. madelyn's music teacher was leading a music class in one of the driveways when we arrived so mason used the distraction as his chance to play in the little bounce house. madelyn had a lot of fun singing, dancing, and playing instruments with her friends.

while the music class was finishing up several emergency vehicles pulled up the street. the kids were able to check out a fire truck, police car, and ambulance. as you can imagine, these were a huge hit. madelyn was really excited to get a badge sticker too (actually, she had been asking me for one but it was mason that was given one later - i just gave it to madelyn). one of the firemen was very nice to take mason through himself so that i didn't have to climb up into the firetruck that mason very obviously wanted to check out again. mason kept running back over to it after we had already visited it once with daddy.

it was a little concerning to see how happy all the kids were to be sitting in the back of the police car - although it did make for some cute pictures.

we had a big pot luck type of dinner with everyone grilling their own meat on grills set up in the street and sharing side dishes. there was a bean bag toss tournament (matt was eliminated in the first round by the team that ultimately won the whole thing). and lots of bubbles, side walk chalk, hula hoops, etc. for the kids to keep busy playing. mason was particularly taken with the bubbles. it was a windy night so he could dip the wand and pull it out to get wind blown bubbles most of the time. i think that he enjoyed the dipping most of all.

the kids both had dessert which is a very rare occurrence. almost all the kids started to loose it around 7:30. it was funny to hear crying and then good-byes over and over as all the kids started hitting their bedtime wall. our kids were a little sugared up and madelyn was sobbing about a lost plastic golf club from the set she brought from home after a bathroom break.

we had to give them quick baths before putting them down but i seem to remember them falling asleep a lot quicker than i had thought that they would after eating cookies and being overtired.

it was a fun night with the neighbors. love.