It's hard to believe that another year had already passed and Aleky is a whopping 5 years old already. In preparation for the birthday party Michelle wanted to know what kind of cake he would want. Aleky really had some random ideas for a cake so we had to make an executive decision and opted for the Captain America shield cake.
Once Aleky actually saw his cake he was completely thrilled with our decision. Of course he was just excited he was going to get to eat cake and ice cream.
Our first activity was to pin the eyes on the ghost. The kids had to cut out their own eyes and mouth for the ghost. Then they taped the eyes and mouth to the big ghost but they had to do it blindfolded. Everyone thought that was great and no one was really able to hit the "right" spot.
Michelle wanted to do homemade ice cream, partly as an activity and partly because it just tastes better. However, Brother Hoffman ended up doing most of the work while the kids were playing and doing other activities.
Michelle coordinated the balloon stomp. Each kid had a balloon tied to his ankle and then tried to stomp on everyone else's balloon before someone stomped on their balloon. We had enough balloons for two games!
In spite of the planning, the cake and ice cream was the hit of the party. It was great to see all of the little kids sitting around the little kid table being completely sociable with each other.
Some of the older kids just hung out on the grass so they could get back to playing as quickly as possible.
The parents just sat on the patio observing the goings-on and catching up on each other's lives.
The older kids loved the trampoline and playing a "tag" in which they tried to avoid being hit by the balls thrown from the grounded kids. When the balls got too big we had to step in and calm the game down a bit.
Finally, Aleky got to open his presents. He received a couple of different costumes, including and iron man and two captain america's! He has been so thrilled that he's wearing the iron man costume everywhere, except to bed (because we made him change into pajamas).
(posted 11/15/12)
