First Birthday Party Ever

Yesterday I did my first birthday party ever. I have to admit I actually felt really happy to be up late the night before making cupcakes for my big five year old's big day!

Eddie has been looking forward to the party all week. Eddie's response to Peter's first tease yesterday morning was, "You have to be nice to the birthday boy!". Of course Peter just teased him more.

We had Eddie's party at Michael's. Eddie LOVES doing crafts, especially painting and building projects. This was a perfect place to have a party; it was inside and not at my house! The kids painted and decorated treasure chests. Thus our party was pirate themed.

Working on the craft-Peter's smiles are great in all these pictures.

How can you not love this cute little boy!

I am having a hard time inserting my comments by each picture, so I will put them all at the end.

Eddie got really great presents at his party. His favorite was the Iron Man from his best buddies, Jackson and Sawyer; he couldn't wait to get home so we could get it out of its box.

I had talked to him ahead of time about saying thank you after he opened each present. I warned him not to say if he didn't like something or if he already had it. After everyone left the party he asked, "Didn't I do a good job at just saying thank you, Mom? When I didn't like that present, I just said "thank you"!". I asked him which present he hadn't liked, and he said the remote controlled spider because it was too scary. He told me that maybe he could play with it when he gets bigger. When we got home he told Peter he could have it. Peter's been loving it, but Eddie plays with it, too. Looking at these pictures, though, I can tell he loved this present right when he got it. Look at those smiles!

Eddie received lots of fun crafts as birthday presents: cars to paint, Buzz Lightyear and Woody to paint, and a box containing seven different crafts. He also received Cars cars, a Cars bathtub set, and a Toy Story coloring book.

Blowing out the cool treasure chest candle. Eddie was really excited about the gold coin candy on top of his cupcakes. He wanted to eat those all week. He chose Funfetti cupcakes with strawberry frosting. I also made yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Proof that Ben and Creegan were there. When we were taking off for the party, Eddie was shocked that Ben was going with us. You can see usually we do our adventures without Ben. It was really fun to see how happy Eddie was that his Daddy was going to be at his party. I was a little worried about how Creegan would handle the party. It was at 10 a.m., and I knew he'd be tired. Ben held him for the first half, and our friend, Annie, held him for the second half. He did great, though you can see how tired he was. By the time it was over, he was ready for a good nap. Creegan loved the balloons and water bottles.

Michael's happened to be doing free face painting in the store, so some kids got their faces painted after the party. My children have never wanted their faces painted before, but Peter waited in line, got right in that chair, and told the face painter he wanted to be a butterfly (what the girl ahead of him had requested). He spoke to the face painter himself. Eddie didn't get his face painted but commented at home that he wants his face painted next time.

The party was a huge success. I wasn't stressed out. A lot of my friends asked about having parties at Michael's, so they must have liked it. Eddie exclaimed at the end that he liked the party the best because it was his birthday. I love doing fun things with and for my children. It was a great day.