Happy 5th Birthday!

Sunday, February 12th was Caleb's birthday!  I LOVE celebrating my children's birthdays!  Thinking about decorating the night before (after they go to bed) so they come down to the surprise of the dining room decorated, decorating their cakes and picking out a small, special gift (we keep the birthday gifts very small and simple!) makes me look forward to the event for weeks before it actually happens!

Friday:



My family came for a visit on the Friday before Caleb's actual birthday.  With so many little ones, I thought cupcakes would be easier (and cleaner) to serve than a cake. So we made dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream frosting.  I was told they were tasty... I'm not much of a cake OR peanut butter lover, so I left them for everyone else!

 Saturday night:


After Caleb went to bed on Saturday night, we decorated. Caleb's theme was Cars.  I had a coupon for an online party supply store, so I was able to get some special things for both Caleb's party and Sarah's that we held later in the week.  I drew the Lightening McQueen you see there for a fun and exciting game of "Pin the Number on Lightening"... you got it, a version of "pin the tail on the donkey".  I thought he turned out pretty good!





My online special buy!   Gotta love coupons!




These are the party favors that the boys Caleb invited to his afternoon party got to take home.  The nice plastic cups were filled with a little candy, pencils and stickers.  Take special note of the little balloons for a story in a later picture!

Good Sunday morning!

The next morning, Caleb was thrilled to find the room decorated!




Caleb was certainly surprised and didn't quite know what to think!




The morning was going pretty well considering that Sarah was feeling a little left out that Caleb was getting all the special birthday attention.  But finally, the first (yes I said "first") round of tears started!  This one was because Caleb was wearing a tie, which all came about because he wanted to look like Daddy, who was also wearing a tie.  Since both fellas were wearing one, Sarah also wanted to have a tie on her princess dress.  But sometimes, Mama just has to say no :-)

Sunday afternoon:



There are just some birthdays that are, to me anyway, more notable than others.  Like the 5th one!  Since Caleb is in preschool now and actually has friends, we let him choose two to invite over for a birthday party of pizza and cake Sunday afternoon.  Here's Merek and Caleb playing while the pizzas are cooking.




And it wasn't long until Sarah Rose joined right in... shooting a dart gun at the target no less!



Finally, the pizzas were done!  Eat up, everyone!





After lunch, it was time to play the game.  Merek's getting a good spinning here!




I believe we have a peeker!  :-)

And then Caleb and Merek's other friend, Jack, arrived!



Jack taking his turn.  I'm not sure if he was peeking or not, but judging from the perfect aim of the number, I'm guessing we have a second peeker on our hands!




And then we played a little gag on the birthday boy!  Gotta have a little fun, right?!  So when we were done spinning him, we pointed him in the wrong direction.   The other boys and Sarah Rose thought this was hilarious as they watched Caleb wandering aimlessly around the room, not even close to the target!  Caleb thought it was pretty funny, too, when he found out where he was at!





And then it happened... Sarah started the silliness!  And from there, the whole game was seeing who could put the number in the sillier place!





Time for cake!  I've made the kids a special cake every year for their birthday, but this year was just a little different.  (And of course, there's a story and it involves a coupon!)  Last year, Sarah and Caleb had a joint cake, but every other year, I've made them their own.  So by the time we're done with the birthdays, everyone has had plenty of opportunity to eat all the cake they want and, honestly, has had enough cake that they don't even want to hear the word for a good long while!  But this year, Dairy Queen had a speical customer appreciation day sale on the Tuesday before Caleb's birthday; I thought "Great!  We'll have an ice cream cake for his birthday, a regular cake for Sarah's, and we'll all be happy!"  Just so happens that I had a $3.00 off coupon for such a purchase, too!  So on that Tuesday, Sarah and I made a special trip to town (our usual town day is on Thursday) to get our groceries, run errands and pick up the cake.  We make DQ our last stop and to my great pleasure, they have a plain white cake in the freezer.  Perfect because I still wanted to decorate it myself!  It was crazy busy, with a few grumpy people, but I stayed patient and greeted all the workers with a smile and an understanding wink when they were having trouble with their customers and when one customer was less than nice to me.  But we just waited patiently and soon enough it was our turn.  They rang up the cake (regular $19.99... crazy, I know!), rang up the discount (-$10.00) and told me the total was $9.99.  When I hand them the coupon, they said they couldn't use coupons this particular day because of the sale.  Bummer, dude!  But oh well... I wan't pleased about it, but 5th birthdays only come once in a lifetime!  I gave the lady my debit card, she went back to use it on the machine, I signed... took my cake... and Sarah and I came home.  A couple of days later, I was balancing my checkbook, entering all the reciepts from the precious days' purchases, and what do I discover?  They went ahead and counted my coupon!  WooHoo!  So I ended up with a special cake for Caleb's birthday, $20.00 regular for $6.99!  Yay!  A smile can go a long way!




I decorated the plain DQ cake with a Cars theme.  It turned out pretty cute and Caleb was pleased!




Silly boys!




And not to be left out... Silly girl!




The boys continued being silly and ate very little, but Sarah was all business!  I think she even finished Caleb's only half eaten peice!



Blowing each other in the face with the party blowout thingys. 




Taking it easy... not getting far from the guns!!




I usually don't share about the gifts because I certainly don't want to appear braggy.  But Caleb requested a special gift and had a pretty good idea he was going to get it.  And the look of joy and anticipation on his face was priceless!





That priceless look, however, soon turned sour when Sarah found out what it was.  And this was the second round of tears!  Sarah was pretty upset that she wasn't getting it for herself!




I LOVE this picture!  Once Caleb wrestled the gift out of the grip of Sarah's hands, he discovered that his request of a "belt buckle like Daddy's" had been met! 




Josh teaching Caleb how to use the new buckle, which is just a little bit different than your typical buckle.



Pretty proud!  It has a monster truck on the buckle and the same monster trucks on the length of the belt....




... with his name on the back!





After opening the gifts from his friends, the boys and Sarah turned to their newest game of wailing on each other with the little balloons from the party favors (remember I told you to remember?).  I knew they were harmless and they had a terrific time!




Bottoms up!  Getting every last drop of the Green Go Juice (lemon-lime Kool Aid) we had!




And here's the last link of Caleb's birthday chain!
Notice how wide eyed and still ready to go the kids are, even after the party is over and the friends have gone home....



...while Daddy is tuckered out on the couch!  I think between missing his Sunday nap and the kids playing so hard, he was just plain worn out!  He'd better stick to his current day job!  As hard as he works, I think doing daycare is out of question ;-)