Attention, Troops!

Russell and Paige had a joint birthday party this year. Russell wanted an army theme, and since Paige didn’t object ;) that’s what we had. The party was supposed to be at the tank park, but there was an 80% chance of thunderstorms all day, so we moved it to our house.

The troops (minus one birthday girl, who was too busy crawling around)!

The drill sergeant had them decorate their dog tags – because every dog tag has stickers, right?

Paige in her patriotic gear:

Next was a paratrooper game – everyone was supposed to drop their soldiers from the airplane (their nose) onto the landing field (their containers). {All the games were made up the day before, since we had planned on just letting the kids run around at the park – thank goodness for Pinterest!}

Next, they built gumdrop lookout towers for their soldiers to stand on:

 

(Meanwhile, our neighbor read a book to Paige):

When the gumdrop towers were built and the soldiers stood on top, it was time to get our some marshmallow shooters to shoot at the troops! (And Paige loved eating all the shot marshmallows ;))

Paige was picking up too many marshmallows, so we went inside for a snack:

To the Mess Hall for cookie decorating! (This party involved a LOT of sugar!) Paige had a cookie too, it’s just not in the pic.

And then it was time for cake and singing! Both kids loved the singing – you can’t tell here because by the time I could get a picture, Paige was already digging in to the cake!

I did get Paige a pink cupcake – I figured with an army party for her birthday, she ought to at least have something girlie!

She did what she was supposed to do: ate it all and made a huge mess!

Presents:

I wanted to get a good picture of all the kids. L to R: Meredith, Faith (a friend from church), Keaton and Eden (neighbors across the street), Olivia (neighbor down the street), Russell, Paige.

Family photo:

And one of me and Jason, just because we never get those!

The party ended up being wonderful, even though it didn’t go as planned originally. Everyone had a great time and Russell and Paige had happy birthdays! :)