5-Year Birthday Bash

Birthday cakes, decorations and tasty snacks........$50

Gift bags filled with fun surprises for LTD's favorite friends........$60

15 children laughing, singing and filling shoeboxes for less fortunate children around the world........PRICELESS!!!

Saturday was our 5th birthday bash for LTD and it was an absolute riot! Check out our video to see the difference between a more subdued birthday celebration with Grandma and Papa Good the wknd before vs. Saturday's gathering of 15 children. Let's just say we broke the decibal record at Camp Clark!

The video should give you an idea of how much fun was shared between these little people. We started out with a game of kickball at the park across the street which lasted about 20 minutes until mayhem took over - the boys decided tackling was way more fun than tagging the runners out! OK, plan B - SPRINTS up and down the soccer field and snow angels in the snow.

After we tired them out a bit, we went inside for some hot cocoa and treats and sang some of their favorite Christmas songs (Jingle Bells, Rudolph). From there, we all snuggled up for a brief 10 minute video on "Operation Christmas Child" to remind the kiddos why we were packing shoeboxes and for who. It was simply amazing to see the room so calm & quiet as they watched intently with love in their hearts.

Let the packing and wrapping begin!! Talk about chaos! Dave and I each had a table of children we were overseeing but little did we realize how difficult it is for 3-6 yr olds to "cut paper, tape and wrap neatly" so the covers could actually fit on the boxes. Duh! We called it off after about 20 minutes and decided just to let them fill the boxes and move on.

After the children broke loose into the playroom and Dave and I cleaned up the wrapping aftermath, we brought out the cakes: one for Dylan and one for Lindsey and Taylor. Dylan picked out a Fire & Rescue chocolate cake and the girls picked out a Little Pony cupcake cake.

Here are just a few photos but we plan to show more on our Kodak Gallery site soon. (link in the right column of this blog). Funny thing, Dave and I were SO busy we had little time picking up the video camera and camera! But we got enough to capture some of the magical moments.

LTD went to bed that night SO happy and with SO much to talk about. Shortly after lights went out, they were sound asleep. Aahhh, peace and quiet! Most importantly, 3 happy little angels and a day they will remember for a LONG time.

Today we dropped off the shoeboxes at the OCC warehouse. On the way out the door, Dylan asked, "where we going?". I reminded him we were going to deliver the shoeboxes and he quickly smiled and said, "to Africa?!" After they helped me unload them at the dock, the helpers thanked them and gave them big hugs and smiles. Taylor walked away and said, "I am SO happy, I could cry!"

500,000 shoeboxes were collected in a 5-state area and 8 million around the world. That's alot of caring hearts and compassion. That's what it's all about!! :)