Bowling Birthday Bash

Saturday morning Easton woke up and he was 5. He thought he would have grown a lot overnight. That not only would he be taller, but able to run faster and jump higher. Cutie.

Here he is at the exact moment he became five: 8:08 a.m.:


He was itching to open all his presents but we made him wait till after breakfast. He'd chosen chocolate croissants and I stuck a candle in it for him and we sang:


Then it was time for presents!

He opened some of the accessories from the space shuttle Santa had brought:



Love Dalton peeking in.

And the thing he most wanted (and the only thing he was asking for) was Star Wars Legos. He doesn't really play with Legos much so we didn't want to get a whole, huge expensive kit. AND the box says it's for 6+ but we went for a small kit anyway:


He was excited:


You might even say he was pumped:


Little Diddles did a great job while Bubba got to open all kinds of new things. Sweet G-Ma and July thought to send a little something for both Dalton and Autumn on E's special day. Dalton knew there was a gift waiting for him and he's just waiting to open it:

Little sweetie.

He got to open a little Melissa & Doug magnetic Joey set "like Gramoo has".




He got other things too. Here are several video clips of Easton during his gift opening, if you're interested. And you don't have to be. :)

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Once Easton had opened all his loot he moved on to assembling his Legos. Jason was there for coaching but he did a really good job with them and followed the instructions in the pictures and everything:






Meanwhile, Dalton got started playing with his new magnetic paper doll:


And I got to work on finishing up Easton's cake:




I also filled the party favor bags. At the last minute I decided to try to make them look like little bowling pins:


During all this, Easton almost seemed a tad sad. We weren't quite sure what was up. We thought he'd be playing with all his new stuff...and he was. But he just seemed a tad off. Jason gave him a snack in case that was the issue. Who knows?


But before long it was time to get dressed and head over to the bowling alley for his party!

We had never set foot in this particular bowling alley. We booked our party there sight unseen. I had no idea it was going to be glow in the dark bowling. But it was. So we got there a smidge early to meet our party host (Teddy) and set up a few things. Like my bowling lane cake:

I don't know why, but I have this thing that I always want to make the kids' cakes myself. I'm not a decorator, but I want to be. I should take a class. But I found this idea online and tried my best to copy it as best I could.

At the table before his friends started arriving:


As his friends arrived, Teddy would take their present and go get them some bowling shoes. Blessedly, Gramoo and Lauren were there to help me too. Even with Teddy doing most everything, it was still tough to think about balancing time with my birthday boy, his siblings, and our guests. They totally came to the rescue with the kids, especially Autumn. And even with his buddies there, Easton hung out with his Gramoo quite a bit:


We had a few stragglers for the party but Teddy went ahead and put their names into the computers BUT since they weren't there I was just letting the kids take turns bowling while we waited for everyone to show up. The parents of all but one kid stayed. And that was the one kid that needs a parent with him. The class rascal. I forget why we invited him, exactly. He's the same punk that threw sand in Easton's eye and the same kid that told Easton his shoes weren't cool. But Easton says "He's my buddy" so we invited him. He was a handful and later on the class room mom sort of took over helping me reign him in. Thank goodness! I'm not sure I saw Autumn much at all but Jason and I did get to spend a little time with our boys and with the party guests:






Jess and Janna also arrived at some point and hung with my kids a lot too:






Still it was hard to feel like it wasn't completely chaotic. It was dark and loud and I had lots of people I wanted to spend time with. Mostly my big five year old and while I was chatting with someone he came running over going, "Mom! Mom! I knocked all the pins down! Did you see me?!?!" And I hadn't. :( I missed his strike. Boo!



They were being such cute brothers out there but because it was so dark the camera took forever to snap the picture sometimes and this was the best I got:

Luckily Jason and I were both there watching them so at least we'll have that memory.

Easton and his buddy Jacob:


Haven't you just been totally loving Easton's little bowling shirt? We gave it to him that morning. He couldn't read his name on it because it was "all swirly". :)

It felt like things had calmed down a tad once all the kids were there and they could actually go when the computer told them it was their turn (minus Brock thinking every time was his turn, the rascal). But still it wasn't a ton of activity for the kids while they waited for the 4 kids in front of them to go. Easton even said he was bored at one point later on. :(

Party friends from school killing time:


Some sort of impromptu train dance thing:


After about an hour and fifteen minutes of bowling it was time for some pizza:




And his friends took turns signing their names on his souvenir bowling pin:


Then it was time for cake. Easton blew out the candles the second I lit them. Before we'd even sang. Goober!!! Hasn't he had 4 other birthdays before this one to get it right??? :) Heck, he'd even blown out a candle after the song at breakfast that very morning. Silly goose. Guess he was excited. So we did some cake:


Then presents:




Easton got lots of cool stuff and I think he had a nice time overall. I hope his friends did too. It was hard to gauge since I wasn't around anyone too much. Jason let me know the contents of our favor bags was lame. I pretty much let Easton pick it all out. Who really cares about goody bags anyway? Not me. Most of that stuff doesn't last anyway. And the cool stuff that does I can't afford for all those kids and bowling. :)

We came home. Poor Autumn was worn out despite a nap in Gramoo's arms:


E dove into his new stuff once we arrived home and we just snacked on stuff for dinner since we'd had pizza around 3:30 or so. He said he'd wanted to go to Chick-fil-a for dinner but really just to play. Not because he was particularly hungry. I told him I'd take him the next day, forgetting at the time that the next day was Sunday and Chick-fil-a is closed then. Oh well.

Easton finished up the day by staying up extra late checking out his stuff and having fun "when his Dad is home".

What a happy day for our big guy!