P is for Party

We celebrated James' Birthday today. His birthday not for a couple weeks yet, but poor James always gets jipped on his birthday. (more on that another time) Having it early was a good thing because the weather was great!! Now this is the first "real" party that I have thrown for the boys, so I was pretty nervous. But I think it went well.

PREP

I made cupcakes for the party. (Easier to take outside) Look how great they look!

James wanted a "Hot Wheels" birthday so one of the activities that we did was painting cars. Here is the cars sitting nicely before craziness happens.

I made some cars out of boxes for a game of Red Light/Green Light and here they are all lined up ready to go.

And here are the cupcakes again. I know you're thinking "why are we seeing the cupcakes again?" Actually this is only half the cupcakes.... the DOG ate the other half!!!!!!!!! (it totally deserved 9 exclamation points) I was wrapping presents with Tommy and Tim, I heard a noise and then I saw Captain running out. I turn and look and HALF of the cupcakes are gone!!! I go outside and of the 8+ cupcakes that he had eaten there was only one wrapper that was on the ground, AND I was missing a candle! Oh, I was so mad! I grabbed Captain by the scruff of the neck and drug him inside. Tim is crying because Captain is in trouble. Now I'm plagued with what to with the dog. I can't have him in the house (Chocolate cake and this dog just ends in a mess) and I can't have him in the backyard because that is where we are going to be. So I tied him up on the side of the house. My great friend and neighbor was a huge help as I was having a meltdown. Priscilla made another batch of cupcakes for me and brought them over before we sang to James.

What is a birthday party with out a crisis of some sort??


PARTY
Here are the boys painting the cars. This actually was a big hit. And after I got the spilled paint cleaned up (Thanks Tommy) it was really fun.
We had english muffins pizzas for lunch. I think all the kids just liked playing with the food and eating the cheese.

Here is where it got fun. Here are the "cars" that I made, the boys all had a great time with these. It was funny watching all the boys trying to run in the boxes (especially when they tip over)
Here is James fun running down the grass.

And Tommy having a great time. He was so funny to watch because the box was almost bigger than him.

James in a box. (to bad they are to small to put the kids in.... I'm sure Steve could use the company)

James blowing out his candles, he had help from every boy that was there. You can see the white ones that Priscilla made, and the dark one that I did. It was going to say "Hot Wheels" but that was before the Captain incident.

Tim enjoying a cupcake. And you can see that he also enjoyed painting. I don't know how he always manages to paint his face.

PLAY
In the end it didn't really matter what I had planned the boys just liked playing together. Note to self... don't work so hard on the games.... just let them play.

And last but certainly not least...

PRESENTS!!

Again he had lots of help with this. James has some great friends and they were all willing to make sure that James got all of those presents open.

He got a scooter (from us) which he has loved and is getting really good at it.

He got a helmet (from us) that he didn't want to take off. And walkie talkies which he and Tommy loves.

Some Hulk hands. James likes these but we had to have a talk about not hitting the brothers we'll see how well these go over. He also got a transformer (from the brothers) and a set of Kinexs

And he got a Pogo Ball. Do you remember these? I do and I loved them!! James is working on getting better at this.

It was a fun day. It's a good thing that birthdays come around only once a year. I can't believe that I have a 5 year old! (At least in a couple weeks). It's been hard to let go of him as a toddler and see him as a boy, but it's been a great journey so far. Happy (early) Birthday James. I love you!