Today my little girl turns 4! Over the weekend we had a horse party in the barn for her birthday. We have a huge old barn on our property, circa 1920. It was used to raise Morgan horses back in the day. Now that we live here, there are just two barn cats and lots of uninvited wildlife roaming around in the barn. Perhaps someday, when the kids are old enough to help, we will have more animals.
Lily is into horses right now so my husband vacuumed the entire second floor of the barn and installed some lights. We set up some party games and the kids had a good time. We had horseshoes, of course. I sketched a bull’s head and my husband cut it out of wood and made a lasso and the kids took turns lassoing. My three year old nephew caught the bull right away. I couldn’t believe it! We had a little homemade pinata full of bags of jelly beans at Lily’s request. Pictured above is the pony swing my husband made out of an old tire. He found directions on line. I sketched the pattern and he cut and assembled. It was a little harder than anticipated because in true male fashion he assumed that bigger was better and got a truck tire. I actually had to stand on it while he pushed the bolts through. A car tire would have been easier; he now admits. The perk is that two kids could ride at a time. And finally, the hit I think, was find the pennies in the haystack. We spread hay on the barn floor and hid a 100 pennies and the kids got to find 10 each. They loved it!