Brian's Big 5!

Really, I am going to catch up this time. I promise. Both boys are at school, Allison is asleep, and the house can wait. So I will start with Brian's birthday.

Yep, it's official he is FIVE!! Wow where does the time go. With his birthday being the day before both Thanksgiving AND Allison's birthday I tried to think ahead and plan ahead. Quit laughing, I am perfectly capable of planning ahead. Okay, I admit it I did put thought into it ahead of time but when it came down to it I had to hope I could find invitations at Rite Aide and get them filled out and to the preschool in time to pick Brian up. Which I did. The only problem was I had to change his birthday theme because the only invitations I could find were pirate invitations. Luckily Brian was fine going from Iron Man to Pirates of the Carribbean theme. His birthday party was planned for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Figuring many kids would be out of town I went out on a limb and invited his whole preschool class. Steve was a little nervous and told me I better be prepared to entertain the whole class, but I knew better. There were only 4 who rsvp'd, and 1 of those ended up being sick so it was a small group, but still lots of fun.

The kids had fun coloring pirate pages while we were waiting for all the guests to arrive, then I took them into the kitchen one by one so they could make their own pizza. I had the dough rolled out into personal sizes s for them and they got to put on all their toppings. While the pizza was baking I sent them on a treasure hunt. I was hoping for good weather so we could do this outside, but with it being the end of November knew it was a long shot. Sure enough it rained all day so the hunt was inside. I made a treasure map with cold coffee and crumpled it up so it looked authentic. They had 4 places to find and at each place there was a pile of gold coins waiting for them. Then the end of the treasuer hunt at the waterfall (Brian's blue sleeping bag coming down over the bunkbed ladder) was where the treasure was hidden. Instead of goodie bags I found these small cardboard treasure chests that my Mom and cousin filled with gold coins, a telescope, balloons, and a glow in the dark bracelet. The kids were so excited and immediately went to the living room to check out there booty.

By this time the pizza's were ready and they got to eat the pizza they made. Then of course presents and birthday cake. I was very pleased with the cake. I bought a cake set that had little figures of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner as well as railing and a ship steering wheel. Brian wanted me to make octopus legs coming up from under the ship. It actually turned out pretty good.

This was Brian's first birthday party where he was able to invite friends and not just family so he was especially excited. He had been asking us EVERY DAY since July if it was his birthday. No, I am not exaggerating. We were so happy for it to come so he would stop asking. Although he is already talking about what theme he will have next year!