A Week of Celebration!

Tuesday: Luke turns 5!!

Birthday parties are a special treat at our house. We decided to let the boys have a few friends to help celebrate at their 5th birthday. Luke decided he wanted to invite his soccer buddies! So we had a "soccer" party and invited his 6 teammates. With siblings, neighbors, and a few extras, we ended up having 18 children!! Thankfully, we had 11 adults to help with the chaos!

I searched high and low for these playmobile soccer players (now retired from production). I was sooo thankful for Luke's simple soccer cake design - whoo! With actual party and food preparation also, I don't know that I could have swung a two headed, flaming dragon in 6 colors like the boys usually pick.

I decided I better do some cupcakes too just in case we had a few more that expected! (GOOD THING!)

This little baby was the hit of the century!! I was looking for some neat-o favors for the party-goers to take home and was not finding anything that would not end up in the trash can the next day. I also, again, had no concrete number of children I was going to have, so when my shopping buddy Amanda saw this, I knew it was the solution. Cotton Candy on the way out of the door. The kids love it, I have as much as I need, AND I'll use it again and again! Thank you World Market!!

party ready to roll...

our first guest... isn't she cute!

(pictures of Frankin' Kate to come soon...yes, another stitches story)

While we waited for all the guests to arrive,

Ben entertained with a game of soccer...of course!

PIZZA!!

gotta love cheese curls, right?

CAKE Time!!

PRESENTS!!

Ben was enjoying the progression of these few minutes...

all children orderly seated...

children beginning to stand up so they can SEE...

circle getting a little tighter...

Luke can no longer breathe!! HA!!

I WISH, WISH, WISH I got a few more pictures of the fun that night. We had fun on the playground and the cotton candy was SO great, but my camera was the last thing I was going for at this crazy party!! Thank you, Benjamin for saving the day and getting all the pictures!!

WEDNESDAY: Mommy turns 31!!

Thank you to Linda, my beautiful neighbor, for baking me a pretty and AMAZING birthday cake!! mmmm!

THURSDAY: Ethan's Kindergarten Graduation!!

***sniff

prayer...shhh!

reception

and...Noel was there to witness it all!!

whew... what a week!! Needless to say, I'm catchin' up on laundry this week!! HA!

These are a few videos of the graduation. Grandparents are required to watch all 4, but if you are a wonderful reader and don't particularly want to watch all of them, may I suggest the "crotch digging" proud parent moment caught on tape #4 and then maybe the "Monkeys jumping on the bed" #1