Celebrating the Birthday Boy!

After waiting a couple weeks to work around work schedules and extended family sports schedules (which didn't end up working out anyway), we were finally able to wrap up our celebrations of Carter's 5th birthday with a party yesterday.  The bummer was that Craig's brother, sister-in-law, and two of our nephews were unable to attend due to sports, and my dad had a cold and opted to keep his germs to himself.  We still had a nice little group, though.  The good news is that it was actually a pretty decent day outside, so Jacob and his big cousins (and Carter, for a while) were able to play lacrosse outside, which I think made it a little easier for Jacob who had been so looking forward to having his other cousins (one and two years older than him) at his house.

The preparations for the party seemed to take days even though we were just getting pizza and wings.  I only made a couple other dishes for the meal plus one appetizer, but the house cleaning and shopping seemed endless for a while!  I took off work Friday--partly because Jacob really wanted the day off and partly because I had so much to do--and in the end it helped a lot.  I was actually pretty ahead of the game by the time the party started, and it was nice to enjoy most of the party for a change.  It helps that Carter's parties are all indoors, as opposed to Jacob's which are usually outside and far from the kitchen!  It was really nice catching up with my aunts (including the one whose husband passed away recently) and two of my cousins.  So many of my childhood memories come from times with my extended family, and it's always special to have them at our home.

The birthday boy made out very well!  He received three Lego sets, including this gigantic one...

Craig took most of the night putting it together, and the pizza truck and dinosaur from Uncle John's family had to wait until tonight!

Craig's parents got him more Imaginext stuff to go with the sets he's been playing with a lot lately.  He has pretty much everything from the Yeti and Egyptian lines now, and that means we have a full set of explorers and gear.  He is loving that stuff!

My mom gave him three shirts and the additional set of magnetic tiles.  This set has domes and arches.  I'm not as thrilled with this set as I'd hoped, since one type of arch doesn't seem to have magnets as strong as the rest.  I need to play with it more and then we'll see if the company has any suggestions.  But he still loves the tiles and I think some of these pieces will be really fun to use!

He also got some money that we will squirrel away!  All in all, he made out really well and I'm happy that everything he got pretty much goes with stuff he already has.  We're starting to narrow down interests now, and I think we're on the verge of a purge to move out more of the little kid stuff and make better spaces to use the big kid stuff.  He's really good at using what's around to create stuff, so I'll be conservative with those choices, but editing is definitely needed!

As usual, the cake was a major focus.  It took us so long to pick a theme this time, but thankfully Carter's interest in soccer finally gave us a focus.  Of course, I'd done a soccer cake for Jacob when he turned four, and I didn't want to have to compete with that one, so Pinterest to the rescue!

I got a good head start on Saturday night, but it still literally gave me nightmares!  Probably didn't help that I didn't feel great, which left me in that awkward half asleep stage for most of the night, but I was very concerned about all of the lines and running out of frosting!  But in the end, it turned out great!

My sweet boy was very happy with it!

It was a really nice day and it was great having everyone over to celebrate our awesome little guy.  Seems like yesterday that we were doing this for the first time (not just with Carter, but with Jacob, too!), and here we are with a big kid.  Not sure where time has gone, but at this point it really needs to slow down!  Happy Birthday Carter!