Today we celebrated Ethan's 4th birthday with a few of his little buddies.
As the kids arrived they colored their firefighter badges with crayons and Derrick helped me tape them on each little guest. The tape didn't hold up the greatest as they ran around, crawled through tunnels and rolled around on the floor... but it gave us a quiet activity to do while the other guests arrived. While they colored I read a giant book about a Big Red Fire Engine. We sang a song "Hurry Hurry Drive the Fire Truck" and compared it to the book.
After coloring badges and listening to the story, everyone sat down to a firefighter lunch of Homemade Macaroni and Cheese, steamed peas, apple and orange slices, Cheetos, and a juice box (all per Ethan's request). While they ate we talked about firefighters and how sometimes they sleep, eat and play games at the station while they wait for a call to help someone or put out a fire. We talked about when someone needs their help, they need to get there fast, so they sleep at the station so they can just get up and jump in the truck. We also discussed a few fire safety questions while they ate.
As they finished up eating, I told them that the next thing we were going to do was to go downstairs and rescue some puppets from a burning house. Everyone was excited and rushed to wash their hands so we could go downstairs.
Once downstairs, they all put on their firefighter hats and lined up for the obstacle course. At first I didn't know if I was going to be able to keep everyone's attention to explain the activity, but once the first one got going, the others were ready to wait for their turn. I handed them all cards with pictures of the puppet they were needing to rescue and they were off! It was a great time watching them drive the fire truck to the ladder, climb up the ladder and look for the fire, slide down the slide and then run over to the tunnel, crawl through the tunnel and then grab the fire hose, spray the house that was on fire, and then go inside and rescue their animal puppet, then sprint back with all their might to tag the next person in line.
After they all went through once, I opened it up to all that wanted to go again, and they had a great time pretending to fight the fire and rescue their puppets.
The fun of the rescue relay started to fade and we moved upstairs again to sing happy birthday and have cupcakes. I had made vanilla cupcakes and topped them with red, yellow and orange frosting to make it look like flames.
Following the cupcakes came another book, Fire Fighters & Fire Engines by Lisa Peters. This was a great book that talked about what firefighters do when they get a call and told a little more detail about why they use the things they do. It was a little out dated, but the pictures are great and everyone listened very well!
Opening presents came next and everyone was way too excited to sit!!! I instructed everyone to grab the present they had brought and one by one they handed Ethan the gift to open. Once it was open I asked the gift giver to tell a little about the gift they gave. It was WONDERFUL to listen to the stories as to why they picked what they did, what they did to make the gift, or even how much they liked the gift that they were giving to Ethan. But, with each gift, as you can see in the pictures, they were all eager to see what was inside as Ethan opened it up!!
After gifts I asked all of them to decide if they wanted to go back downstairs to play or if they wanted to play out in the snow. Of course, all shouted to go outside and I was glad it was a nice and sunny winter day! THANKS LORD!! :)
Getting everyone dressed was a bit of chaos, but we managed and ended up having a great time playing in the snow, sliding down the hill and even building a little snowman. With one Mom at the bottom of the hill and me at the top helping push, pull and seat the others, they had a safe sledding experience in the front yard. :) (Thanks Cori!)
Overall, it was a great day and everyone seemed to have a good time! I still can't believe my little guy is 4!
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