Inaugural Kentucky Derby Party

The Mays and the Youngs joined us to host our first annual Kentucky Derby Party this year! We collectively agreed that this will become an annual event, so hopefully we won't have any scheduling conflicts for the race moving forward. The party was held at our house, but it was truly "hosted" by all 3 couples. The 3 ladies got together for lunch one day and planned out our theme, menu, activities, etc. We were all in it together and everything was evenly divided up. Sharing hosting duties makes it a lot more fun!

The weather wasn't quite what I was hoping for. We had some outdoor kid games planned, but it was drizzly and rainy all afternoon. Of course, the morning could not have been more gorgeous! Figures!

Everyone got over to our house between 3:30 - 4. Our first order of business was getting our bar and food tables set up with all the yummy stuff that was brought.

Delicious spread including various sandwiches, deviled eggs,
caprese pasta salad, cheese straws, kale salad,
watermelon, sugared pecans and banana pudding!
Not pictured: yummy meatballs in a crockpot

The Bar: mint juleps, Moscow mules & pink drink

Then, we caught the sky between drizzles and ran out to take some quick family pictures.

Heather, Caroline & Walker

The Youngs

Clark, Ava Lane & Stephanie

The Mays

Our fam!

Hahahaha

The *plan* was that the kids could have a little horse race in the yard. Steph made these awesome horses out of pool noodles and I had cones to set out a little race track. But with the weather being so iffy, we never got around to doing the actual races. The kids did play with the cones for a little while, however!

The super cute noodle horses Steph
made. This pic was, unfortunately, taken
after my tornadoes had gotten to them
and messed up a few. :(

The Mamas

We got all the kids to sit together on the porch for a few dozen pics before we all came back inside. 

L to R: Caroline, Stokes, Ryan, William, Ava Lane

Ryan getting love from Dada

The drizzle started coming down so we came back in for our indoor activities!

Steph helping kiddos with coloring horses

William's masterpiece!

My best friend Diane happened to be in town on Saturday with 2 of her 3 kiddos so I insisted that they come to the party!

Grace, Dylan and Ryan
*Ryan LOVES babies!

Silly boy wearing Caroline's hat

Steph made this fantastic betting board for the race. We drew names and chose horses. She even brought a bottle of bubbly for the winner! She got so creative and I love how the board turned out.

Race betting board

Me with Baby Dylan

William and Ava Lane were being so affectionate all day! They kept hugging and tickling each other. It really was adorable!

Diane and Dylan

Cheers!

Diane and me, right before
she had to leave to take her kids to
hang out with their grandma

Almost time for the race to begin!

He loves a hat!

Stokes and Uncle Clark

GOOOOO!!!

AL cheering for her horse!

Our winner!!!!

Posing with her champs

Clark's new accessory

Handsome fellas!
Clark, Thomas, Walker

After the race was over and food had been eaten (and some bevs consumed), the rain stopped, so we brought out the baby pool for a quick run through of a well intentioned plan for the Ken-ducky Derby. We had rubber duck horsies for all the kids and were going to turn on a box fan and "race" them in the baby pool. Yep. 

Kids in the pool and the water was COLD!

The race was so fast and so awesome that it wore the
poor duck horsies out!

Wet babies

After the duck derby, all the kids got in pjs and played just a little while longer.

Stokes riding the horse!

Caroline with the cat piano

Party animal!

Ryan having fun

"Let's keep playing. Maybe our
Mamas and Dadas don't know it's past
bedtime!" ;)

Caroline with a horse

Everyone was having such a good time and the kids were playing together and enjoying themselves and we didn't want the evening to end. Alas, kiddos started getting tired, and it was past bedtime for all the littles, so our first annual derby party ended. We let our kids stay up while we cleaned up quickly after everyone left. The result???

Passed out on the kitchen island

This is what good playtime does!

It truly was such an enjoyable day. The boys slept great that night and even slept in until 8 AM on Sunday...gasp! I was a little disappointed with the rain, just due to the fact that we'd put some thought and effort into outdoor games and activities for the little ones and it didn't quite work out the way we wanted. But even with the rain, we had so much fun just being together. After seeing Heather and Steph's hats, I need to up my hat game for next year! Can't wait for our 2nd Annual party in 2018.