There was so much I wanted to do today, and I didn’t get a bit of it done.  I’m not too worried about it because I knew today was already going to be a busy day.  I dub today as the day of the rowdy toddlers.  Our bff’s son’s 3rd birthday party was this afternoon at Par-Tee Time in Easley.  When I found out the party would be there I Googled for info since I’ve never been there before.  The large building is divided up into sections, and everything is inside.  They’ve got a bounce section with 5 of the really large inflatable bouncers with slides, an indoor putt putt course, a few arcade type games, and 2 indoor batting cages for the older kids.  They also have 2 party “rooms” that can be reserved for birthday parties, group outings, and events.

Overall I liked the place.  Most of the kids had a great time.  I checked out the prices, and they’re pretty reasonable.  It’s $5.25 to play during the weekday, and $6.30-$7.35 (dependent on age) to play on the weekends.  If you just want putt putt it’s $2.10 per person.  The layout was pretty good, too.  It was easy to sit in the parents section and keep an eye on the kids no matter where they were playing.

When I first checked the website I was a bit concerned because it says parents are only allowed to enter the bouncers to assist small children under the age of 2.  When we got there my concern doubled because it was very clear it was going to be impossible for the toddlers and preschoolers to climb the ropes and steps to reach the slides when even the older children were having trouble getting up them.  I was happy during the private party play time the rule wasn’t enforced, and parents were allowed to play in the bouncers to help the younger ones.  At any given time there was a parent playing in each one to give the little ones a boost and keep an eye out as well since some of the bouncers didn’t allow you to view inside them.  They even let some of us “really big kids” have a bit of fun on the slides, and I’m sure many of us will be hurting tomorrow.  Just keeping my footing with a bunch of kids bouncing around me gave me a major workout!  I definitely won’t need to order any safe diet pills at the moment!

After the play session the moved to one of the party rooms for cake and snacks.

It’s not exactly a room because it’s another sectioned off area that is blocked from view by a wooden fence “wall”.  You can’t see into the area, but you can definitely hear all the noise that is going on around you.  I can’t imagine trying to have a party in there on a busy day.  Also, the “wall” is only about 6 feet tall, so the kids still had a view of some of the bouncers.  That made it a little difficult to keep them focused on cake eating and present opening when they were begging to go play again.  The rule is once your party moves to the party room the kids aren’t allowed to return to the play area.  That’s understandable since you don’t want them bouncing and puking after eating, but when the play session is only an hour long it’s also understandable many of them wanted to keep playing.  Most of the younger kids didn’t understand why they couldn’t play again, and with 7 upset toddlers you can imagine how that went.  Most of the older kids were happy enough with their cake instead.  The kids were getting tired as the party wound down, and it was time to go home.  As we migrated to the parking lot most of the “original” toddler group who’ve grown up together over the last 2-3 years took advantage of the concrete ledge to rest while the adults packed everything up.  Unfortunately most of cell phone photos are blurry, but I still wasn’t missing the opportunity to get them all sitting still on their own!

Even though Ellie is the “middle kid” age wise she’s definitely the smallest!

They didn’t choose to sit separately by gender.  That was my daughter’s doing!  Ellie has this thing about sorting everything.  Apparently that now includes kids.

I haven’t gotten a picture of all of the “four musketeers” together since they all started walking!  Getting the pic was hard enough.  Next time we’ll go for the gold and see if we can get them to all smile and look at me!

After the party we were supposed to go to dinner with the birthday boy and his parents, but both kids were so tired we decided to grab take out Mexican and take it back to their house.  As much as we hoped the kids would nap neither did, so we let them run the rest of the energy out outside since the weather held out.  We had to make a final stop by Ben’s parents house so Ellie could spend a little time with her MomMom before heading home.  We finally walked in the door at 10pm.  Ellie went straight to bed, and I’m soon to follow.  Unfortunately I have a chunk of work with a midnight deadline I have to knock out first, but as soon as I do my head is hitting the pillow and hopefully staying there the rest of the night!