The Dog Days of Summer!

Well today is the official end of Summer! To celebrate the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall, I decided to have a playgroup party called "The Dog Days of Summer".
Inspite of all of the prayers for good weather, the morning was very overcast and there was a 50% chance of rain all day! I called Christy C. and she said we better cancel. I really did not want to cancel because of all the exciting things I had planned. Besides if we rescheduled it wouldn't really be the last official day of summer, so I called Michelle and she said let's just go!
I was glad that someone else would be coming. At least I would be the only dummy standing in the rain! Oh did I forget to mention that while I was checking the weather on the computer, my lovely daughter decided to color the face of one of her unframed professional Easter pictures with a black marker!NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Is what I screamed from the top of my lungs when I discovered this little artist! Well, Brooke started screaming and crying and I was soooo upset! I thought that this was going to be the worst day ever!
Needless to say I made it out the door in a reasonable amount of time. Our playgroup was held at a great park in Vestavia called Wald Park. It has some really nice wooden play structures, a covered pavilion, and another separate play ground area. It is fun for kids of all ages!
We had 15 children attend. (Pretty great for a day of promised rain.) When everyone first arrived we all played on the wooden structures. The structures are great! They have railing all around, so that even small children can climb up high and not risk falling. They had lots of great "activity" areas like a steering wheel car thingy and a set of bells that kids could play a song or two.
After playing for about an hour or more the kids were ready for lunch. The kids ate lunch, played some more, and then were ready for the doggy portion of the day!
Becky brought Bailey a white male Maltese to meet the children. They kids loved petting and hugging him. I'm sure Bailey was a little less than thrilled about all that "special" attention.
To go with the doggy theme of the celebration, I had to come up with some activities and treats!
I found some cute doggy shaped bath pouffs, so I took white lunch bags and made them into "doggy bags" decorated with some stickers and such. I added some candy and doggy bone shaped crackers. (One Mom fed them to her dog because she thought they were real dog treats! I bet the dog really loved the Scooby snacks made for humans that were just honey covered graham crackers shaped like bones. That was probably the sweetest doggy biscuit he ever had!)
Anyway, we also did some activities and crafts. We made doggy puppets and dog collar necklaces that you could really wear or put on a stuffed animal. After craft time the kids went to different stations. They could go to doggy reading, doggy play dough with dog and bone shaped cookie cutters, or doggy coloring.
It seemed to be a good time had by all. The rain held off and the weather was actually kinda nice. Even silly prayers are answered. Thank you my Lord! There was sun here and there followed by breezes too! Inspite of the hectic morning, the day turned out to be pretty doggone good!