Micah's Birthday, Part 1

What are birthday party options when the temperature is 112 on your big day?

First, of course, is always swimming with your closest friends.

Time for the real fun to begin.

Micah was convinced that a food fight would be the best way to spend his birthday.

I pulled out all the stale Cheetos and apple chips, made a few batches of old mashed potatoes, and opened two huge cans of pudding.

They each assembled a plateful . . .

. . . and then they waited. Waited for me to release them.

My niece was a little concerned about getting food in her waist-length hair. I told her she could choose to participate or not, but there was no way her hair would stay clean. I was right.

Evie got into it more than I thought. Everyone was so much bigger than she is, I was afraid she would get plowed over. She held her own.

Initially, I was bugged we'd planned the party on an irrigation day, but the water kept them cool and added to the fun.

It only took them about ten minutes to burn through the stockpile.

Lucky for them, that was round one. After establishing the rule that you were only allowed your own can of whipped cream, even if someone left theirs on the ground somewhere, they started spraying whipped cream everywhere.

Whipped cream is much funner than shaving cream--because it's edible, duh. Some kids didn't want to waste a drop of their precious cream, while others made pie tin after pie tin to plaster on their friends.

Some used it for shampoo. That didn't work very well.

I can't believe how much fun they all had. All smiles. No hurt feelings. Much better than I ever thought.

When each can was spitting its surrender, Lily turned on the hose and cleaned everyone enough to swim in the pool again.

Hyrum's favorite strategy with the whipped cream was nozzle in the pants. Ick.

All that remained in the yard were forlorn Reddi-whip carcasses and depleted bowls once full of ammunition. The best part? I let the chickens out of their pen and invited them to help me clean up. Somehow, every bird in the neighborhood got the message that there was a smorgasbord at Dentons', and they made my job much easier.

I didn't know if the present we bought him would live up to the hype of the party . . .