happy birdsday

I have seen the enemy and it is a lime green pig.

When I realized my sweet son would be turning 5 (more on that in a future post), I considered that *I* remember my 5th birthday party. I can see me and my friends in my living room on Craft Street. A boy named Brian from Church gave me a yellow My Little Pony. I REMEMBER IT.

I felt like I needed to give Wesley a 5th birthday party, because he might remember it. This is powerful stuff, people! I can't walk around in my undies anymore! My kid could remember these things!

A couple months ago I asked Wesley what kind of party we should have. Legos? Water? Cars? and it occured to me that we love Angry Birds in this house, especially Wesley. I sat Wesley on my lap and we Pinterested "Angry Birds birthday" and I got freaking giddy. The plan was made.

I finally settled on a date like, um, earlier this month and sent out invites....

I did them one-by-one over email.

I intended to do everything by hand.... make pizzas, make a cake, make a pinata. I had all the recipes and ingredients and tools. What I didn't have was perfect timing and health. We got back on Wednesday from our weekend to Grandma's in the TriCities to celebrate Wesley's actual birthday, and I hadn't done much of anything yet, PLUS I was sick. So I canceled all my plans and did nothing on Thursday. By Friday I was barely functional and stumbled through a huge trip to Winco for food, the Party Store for the pinata (not homemade, oh well, thank goodness Angry Birds is a hot party theme), and the Dollar Store for last-minute randomness.

My living, breathing to-do list was in the iPad. Awesome.

Preparations included:

• Download and install the Angry Birds font (this actually um took me forever)
• Make Angry-birds-colored play-doh (THREE batches... I ran out of cream of tartar)
• Print Angry Birds coloring pages
• Collect cardboard boxes for our Angry Birds game
• Buy Angry Birds licensed pinata filler on eBay to get the better deal (I got teeny erasers shipped from China, no joke)
• Make, assemble, and decorate cake (3 hours alone for steps 2 & 3)
• Clorox wipe the bathroom 
• Decorate pizzas (you'll see!)
• Decorate/personalize goodie bags
• Stuff that pinata -- check out my little helper:

When I was a kid, I just got a couple birthday parties. I think my kids can expect the same. I remember 5, then 8, 12, and 16. All good transitional ages, and reasons to celebrate. Soooo what I'm saying is, don't expect me to do this every year, kids.

I first made a guest list of 40 friends. Sheesh. Our circles keep getting bigger. There's mom friends, Church friends, old Church friends, preschool friends, more. I narrowed it down to 22 kids, plus anticipated extra siblings. Our attendance was *drumroll* .... 13 of the 22, plus 7 siblings to equal 20 guests PLUS Wesley making it 21 kids total. Several moms & dads also came which was awesome.

Soooo without further adieu, the photo summary!

PIZZA!

We had three of those bad boys. SO FUNNY!!!! When I decorated them this morning I actually laughed out loud. (I bought cheese pizzas from Winco and decorated myself.)

We also had lots of fruit and a veggie tray.

GAMES!

When kids arrived I had coloring pages (not a huge hit), play-doh (better reception, and one of Wesley's favorite things ever), and Sharpies for (supervised) decorating of our helium balloons to be Angry Birds. Some kids were so proud of their decorated balloons! They could take them home.

Outside was the standard swingset and running amok (no planning there), but my Angry Birds game was big pile of cardboard boxes, green "pig" balloons, and playground "Angry Birds" balls. FUN!!!! Thanks to Shane and another dad who reconstructed the towers again and again. Some kids actually started setting up the towers themselves, which was very industrious!

DECORATIONS!

Didn't do much here. Didn't even go for crepe paper or balloons on the mailbox. Just swirlies inside. The "Angry Birds fairy" came after Wesley went to bed last night.

THE CAKE!

Hot dang. LOVE this thing.

The chocolate-chip cake was a double batch from scratch, which took forever and hurt my arms. Luckily my cake pans are like 7 inches, smaller than everyone else's in the world, so I could borrow some 9-inch ones and it was just PERFECT.

Used 3.5 tubs of frosting. Piped every single droplet on there.

The eyeballs are just printed on cardstock, with clear tape as a backing to protect them from the icing. I just stuck them on there like glue.

Much loved by all.

This was a cute family photo but OUR CAMERA SUCKS. It's blurry. Look how happy we are.

Wondering where Laurel is? She slept through the entire party. She was cranky-pants just 15 minutes into it (too many people? genuinely tired? wanting momma who was raving-lunatic busy?), and went right to sleep. Lucky me! She slept until after everyone left.

PRESENTS!

Thanks to our friends. Everyone was so generous. We got two nerf guns, two water guns, some educational toys, a stomp rocket, and more. My favorite gift was a box of Space Angry Birds band-aids.

Wesley's favorite gift? The mylar balloons Shane picked up from the Dollar Store last night. He's done nothing but tote them around the house and play with them and love them. He's really into balloons. Cute kid.

Mom & dad's gift today was a bike. We gave him a few presents this past weekend too (new underwear, new pants, a big bag of hand-me-down plastic dinosaurs), but this was the big one we were saving for the party.

And last but not least....

THE PINATA!!!

First, personalized goodie bags.... putting my free font to good use....

Yup, I cut out 24 Angry Birds faces, plus bellies, and glued them onto colored paper bags. AWESOME.

The pinata rocked. It was full of GOOD STUFF:

• a party pack of 48 Angry Birds items (kaleidoscopes, fuzzy balls, mini frisbees and the like)
• Angry Birds stickers (and some generic Dollar Store stickers)
• Angry Birds erasers
• gummy worms in Easter eggs (get it, worms and eggs, hahahahaha! I felt clever)
• plastic worms and bugs
• teeny generic play-doh canisters
• lollipops
• tootsie rolls
• Reese peanut butter cups (you reading, dad? Wesley was allowed to pick ONE chocolate item from the bulk bins and this is what he picked!! He does you proud)
• a couple pencils (I realize this could be an impaling hazard)

That might be it. The dang pinata was FULL and HEAVY. We had a hard time finding string to hold it up. 

I wanted EVERYONE to get a chance, so everyone got two swings blindfolded. Our weapon of choice was a hockey stick.

After I knew everyone had had a chance, we let kids go at it not-blindfolded. Even the meek and mild took a swing (there were a couple really sweet, quiet girls who made good contact!). It actually took longer than I thought, and some dads helped move it all along.

The hot item were these tiny Angry Birds clappers. The girls were so excited. I just loved to see them excited.

That's what this was all about for me. I LOVE TO SEE THEM EXCITED. It was so great.

I had SO MUCH fun. I love my friends and I love Wesley's friends. I love Wesley and I can't believe my sweet boy is five. We had an AWESOME time. I seriously glowed for a few hours after the party, even as I picked up every room, shred by shred. (Shane helped. Some. Our house has never been this clean, haha.)

What a wonderful day! The sun came out and there was much laughter. I feel like the luckiest mom alive. It was an honor to celebrate Wesley today.