The petting zoo IN hell! Hagen's birthday party

We named it (to the parents) The Petting Zoo in Hell...because of the heat! It was SO hot, but it didn't reach 100 which is good. Ryan prepared by buying a $20 misting rope thing at Home Depot that we thought was at least worth a shot and it saved the party! It worked GREAT! We knew it was going to be a piece of crap being $20, but it was perfect...highly recommended!

We started the day and grilled 56 hot dogs at 9:30 AM, had 5 gallons of Chick fil a lemonade, 40 little bags of chips, 2 gallons of iced tea, and 1 case of water...it was perfect! We had alot of people over...there were almost 50 here.

Here is a family photo before the friends began to arrive:

The petting zoo came to set up at 10:30 and Hagen was SO EXCITED!! There was an escape...a little chick that ran into our ground cover and hid. I had to go rescue it as the workers were getting this big ugly Llama out of the truck. Poor chick...I was scared of it, it was scared of me...but we worked together nicely. I HATE petting zoos...despise them. I feel sorry for them, they are usually big and annoying trying to eat your cup of food, they smell, dirty, etc. But this one was different. Little animals, the workers cleaned up after them quickly, etc.

We even had a pony. I never thought that Hagen would in a million years ride Cinnamon, but he was brave and did 4 times! Cinnamon kept eating the grass, I told the worker it was no big deal...the worker told me that it upsets Cinnamon's tummy...I was watching closely for any signs of diarrhea from the pony from that point on. How gross would that be! Meet Cinnamon:

Here is the set up. Some stayed in, some stayed out. I have a family of some flying stinging insects in my house and a billion flys but it was worth it. We went through 2 bottles of 50 sunscreen!! 21 kids in total:

Check out the baby pig behind Hagen below...it is pink with black polka dots...he was precious!! I still didn't touch the little ham...Ha! Get it? Little ham!

OK ladies, I made his shirt. I know...I found it on a blog. It is basically made with this paper called freezer paper that you cut out a pattern, iron it onto a shirt, and it becomes a stencil! The front says "I'm 3..." and the back says "What's your excuse!!"

For favors I ordered these cone shaped bags of multicolored popcorn and put a sticker on them that said, "Thanks for coming! Your friend, Hagen" Ms. Angie (Hagen's teacher that moved to Tulsa a month ago) even came!!

We had such a good time. I was worried about having that many people come (wasn't expecting all of them to come) but it worked out good. Hagen had a great time, the parents had fun talking and keeping cool, it was just fun.

Hagen, we love you so much! You have good friends and their parents are cool too!

Tell you what, I was SHOCKED at the gifts!! He got some COOL stuff!! Lots of Toy Story things...he is so into Toy story, lots of dragons and dinosaurs, outside stuff, water toys, stomp rockets, etc. So fun!!!

Tata,

Carrie