Leo's 5th Birthday!!

I went a little overboard for Leo's 5th birthday party.  Now that his cousins live thousands of miles away, we can't have an impromptu party anymore.  It has to be planned, which is bad news for me.  Once the wheels start grinding in my head, I tend to over-do it a little.  Well...a lot...

Welcome to the pirate ship:

I made the Pioneer Woman Sheet Cake for the first time and another 1/2 recipe for the cupcakes.  It was really amazing!!  I found the idea for the cupcakes on this blog: http://greeneacreshobbyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/03/pirate-cupcakes-and-treasure-hunt.html.  The frosting was this recipe.  I just added a little cocoa powder to a little of it to decorate.

I had the most fun making the decoration over the chandelier in our kitchen.  I just tore up some of the old t-shirt scraps from the t-shirt bags I make for the local Farmer's Market!  I also hung 5 LED flickering candles from the chandelier for added effect.

For our activity, I made a treasure hunt/scavenger hunt for the kids to start the party off right!

Treasure Map #1.  None of them know how to hold it or which direction to go.  After about a minute we just yelled for them to go to the pergola :)

Same story with Treasure Map #2.  They held the map upside down and were completely lost.  TO THE LOGS!!

This one was easy.  I drew a pretty convincing fort :)

My fence was not as well drawn so we had to yell out instructions again.

FOUND IT!

It was such a rockin party.  I was sad to take down the decorations!!

5 years old.  I love the age of discovery he is in now.  The rational part of his brain is sputtering to a start and he is my best little bud now.  We chat about life, death, toys, friends, family, etc.   

He is a busy little dude with lots of sweetness and tons of energy.  He is all business all the time and loves to do goal-oriented work.

 

This birthday year was the year of the Lego:

We put him in swim lessons this year and I am SO GLAD I'm not the one teaching him.  He will cry hysterically when the teacher lets him go underwater.  But he forgives her easily and moves on.  There is no way he would do that with me! 

He also did VBS this year and is still performing all the hand motions to Kingdom Rock in his room every day.