Water Balloon fight!

2 years ago, my eldest child,...Braden, filled a large balloon with water and threw it at our next door neighbors kids, starting a mini water balloon fight. The tradition continued last year with an impromptu water balloon fight involving Braden, our next door neighbors and the family that lived across the street. Word got out about it and the other neighborhood kids have been asking Braden when the water balloon fight will be. His answer - "when you least expect it".

To give the kids a fair shot (or really their parents - the ones who actually have to buy, fill and tie all those balloons), he decided to give the neighborhood about 6 hours notice by putting this sign in our yard:

We headed to the Dollar Tree and bought a bunch of water balloons and some regular sized balloons and spent the day filling them up.

Here's Blythe helping Braden:

He was crouched in that position most of the day (resulting in a nasty sunburn on his back).

After Blythe went to take a nap, Ethan came out to help (or really play in the blow up swimming pool we filled up).

The neighborhood kids kept dropping by all day to check progress and report on their own progress and to ask how much longer til 4:30.

We filled small balloons:

Large balloons:

And 2 more buckets of small balloon replacements.

Finally it was drawing near to 4:30 and the kids were so anxious! They had already decided it would be girls vs. boys. We had prepped Blythe that it would be fun and this year she wouldn't cry and tried to get her to practice throwing some. She got in the pool before the fight so she was already a little wet, so she was all geared up. Braden gave the group a list of all the rules, ending with "no crying allowed".

So here's the video of the start of the fight. Notice how Blythe breaks the no crying rule right from the get go. Such a priss!

Here's some additional photos of the action.

After the water balloons ran out, we just switched to buckets.

So everyone had a blast (except Blythe....but who cares?)! Actually, she confined herself over to the side out of the way and had fun just watching. Maybe next year she'll participate.

The next morning as we're at the breakfast table Blythe says, "Daddy and Ethan are boys and Mommy and me are girls. We're a match and Daddy and Ethan are a match." Then out of the blue...."Maybe we should have another baby". Braden and I just started laughing. Maybe I should take this time to just enjoy the 3 children I already have!