James' 5th Birthday

Our baby is 5 years old! He woke up the morning of his birthday and told Anthony, "I think I am bigger. See my feet? They are longer today."

The morning of James' birthday Anthony strung streamers across his door and the hallway outside of his room. He loved it! We would crawl underneath because he didn't want them to break, he wanted them to stay up for forever. Unfortunately Rett didn't get the memo and he barreled through it and broke it later in the day. There were tears.

I had fun asking these questions this year, but it was hard to get just one "favorite" out of him. He would start listing all of his "favorites" and couldn't stop!

For the very first time we did a birthday party for friends and James invited all the boys from his preschool class and a few kids from church. I didn't want to plan a party or do any work, so we decided on Chuck E Cheese. It was so easy!! They had a hostess dedicated to our party and she made sure everything went well, handed out the food and cupcakes, and even lit the birthday candle for me. It was so worth the money!

Poor Rett was miserable :( I set him up in a booth with a movie to watch and he stayed there for a little while. He had a sore on his tongue that was really bothering him and making him not want to eat or drink. He got worse and worse over the next few days, crying all the time and not sleeping until we realized he also had thrush in his mouth and throat and got him some medicine for it. We even had to hold him down and force feed him water in a syringe at one point, he was so dehydrated!

James' party table.

Two of his friends from his class came and they had fun running around and playing everything.

Rett agreed to ride one ride before going back to his seat. He couldn't suck on his pacifier because it hurt, so he would just bite the side. Poor thing!

James and his school friend Matthias playing his favorite pirate game. James does his pirate face while he is shooting the bad guys. I don't think he even realizes that he does it!

Pizza time! James wasn't interested in eating (of course), so he went a played a few more games while everyone else ate.

It was time for Chuck E Cheese to come out and say happy birthday so they asked everyone who was ready to party to raise their hands.

James didn't want to give Chucke a hug, so he gave him a high five instead.

Waiting to blow out the candle:

After blowing out his candle, James jumped out his seat to tell me that he wished for a real live space shuttle with real parts.

Rett attempted to eat some icing off his cupcake, but started crying right away and saying that it hurt. Poor kid!

The birthday boy also got to go inside the ticket blaster and try to catch as many tickets as he could. We ended up grabbing a few that added up to 200 tickets!

The actual day of James' birthday was a Monday, which is my usual day to stay and help in his preschool class. We brought donuts for everyone and we spent the day playing outside (his regular teacher had a lot of computer work to do on assessments). They played with hula hoops, basketballs, and we looked for roly pollies under the leaves. They all got to eat their donuts while listening to a story book. So much fun!

After school we drove to the go-kart place we went to for my birthday last year to ride the go-karts. James was in one with Anthony and I was in one with Rett. Every time James would pass us, he would grin and stick his tongue out at me. He had a blast!! Afterwards he kept telling me that I was a slowpoke :) We also took a walk to check out the pirate ship on the mini-golf course. One of these days we will actually play mini-golf on it!

We had so much fun celebrating our little man! Happy Birthday James!