Happy Birthday Valentine!

Valentine's Day in our house is full of celebration....because it's Jack's birthday!!!  And this year was no exception.  I simply cannot believe my first baby is now FIVE!!!  It really sounds cliche but time does pass by right before your eyes.  I feel like all I did was blink and my little baby (the wonderful child who slept through the night at 10 weeks old!!!) is now a little boy.  Okay, before the tears start to flow, I'll stop.  :)

Jack was a little sad that Daddy wasn't here for his party, but we were lucky enough to have plenty of family around to take away the sting of Daddy's absence.  My parents flew in and my Aunt Lynn, Uncle Ed, and cousin Jennie (aka "Aunt" Jennie) drove down from DC to join in all the five year old fun!

This year I had Jack's party at a place called The Little Gym where he had previously taken a preschool tumbling/gymnastics class (which he loved).  They throw one heck of a birthday bash and it was totally painless for me - all we had to do was show up with the cake.  Literally!  All Jack's preschool classmates came (all 13 of 'em!) as well as several of his friends we know outside of school.  Yet another reason NOT to host his party at our house; 18 little people + lots of sugar = a whole ton of mayhem that I didn't have to clean up after!!

Most of the pictures have other children in them so I'm unable to post them here but I'll share a few of the many I took that afternoon.  Surprisingly, the twins were completely unfazed by the slew of crazy preschoolers bopping around and instead joined them running around exploring the gymnastics equipment.  I guess that's the benefit of being the second and third born children - they are completely acclimated to the craziness that is a house full of little kids right from the start!!

Jack on his "throne" at the start of the party.

The party room.

The twins quickly tired of the toys in the lobby and made a break

for the gymnastics room!

And they were fearless!!

"Look out Mom - I'm on a mission."

(Nathan)

Balance Beam!

More exploring.

Crazy Jack at age 5 (above). 

Compared to crazy Jack at age 2 (below).

Jack fell in love with this WALL-E cake and do you think I could find matching paper goods?  Of course not.  So, against my nature to have everything match,we had Scooby Doo plates, napkins, etc. to go with our WALL-E cake.

Happy birthday to you!!

Yum.