Celebrating a Five Year Old in Style!

Michael turned FIVE last SUNDAY, people.

FIVE YEARS OLD!

How did this HAPPEN!?!?

My womb is saddened by this news.  She feels old and useless.  And old.  And empty.  But mostly old.

We had a hard time figuring out what to get him for his birthday this year.  We thought about a scooter, like Gracie got for her birthday, but he didn’t really want one of those.  We asked if he wanted a new bike since he is getting so tall for his, but he wasn’t too excited about that idea either.  When we took him to the toy store to let him show us what he wanted, he only pointed out medium-sized or smaller gifts.  Nothing really stood out as a BIG GIFT for him.

Finally, Chris and I decided to get him just what he wanted, even if it meant giving him a few extra smaller presents instead of one larger one.  I feel weird about this.  I’m not sure why.  There’s always a BIG GIFT for your birthday, right???  But historically for my kids, the gift that Chris and I deem as the BIG GIFT is usually not the most popular one after all.

In the end, here is what we got him:

TMNT Headphones ($17.76 from Amazon) – This has been on the gift list since LAST Christmas.  Bean has a LeapFrog game thing (piece? unit?  I don’t know what to call it…), and he loves to play it in the car or around the house.  The only problem is that it can be loud, depending on which game he is playing.  He also uses headphones when he uses my iPad or iPhone.  A few months ago, Chris found a totally awesome set of 80’s headphones from our basement to let Bean use, and he has used them without a complaint.  But he really needs a super spiffy set of headphones.  I got him these Ninja Turtles ones from Amazon, and he is going to love them!

Legos ($29.99 from Amazon) – Like, the REAL Legos.  He has had Duplos since he was two or three years old, but only just got into playing with them in the past few months.  He makes elaborate castles and airplanes and cars, but he doesn’t have enough of them to really go crazy yet.  We decided it was time for him to upgrade to the REAL Legos.  You know, the kind we can step on in the middle of the night?  Or the kind that Gracie can shove up her nose?  Yeah, those.  We think he is going to LOVE them!

Monsters University Scare and Scream Walkie Talkies ($26.29 from Amazon) – This idea is 100% from Chris, and it’s only 50% about Bean. Chris has been dying to use walkie talkies with Bean since he was born. He turns into a little kid talking about it. “I’ll be outside and Bean can radio me about whatever is going on inside!” Chris says. I think he and Bean are going to love it! I don’t even think Bean knows what walkie talkies are, but these are the perfect introduction set because they have one big button for him to press, so they should be pretty simple. Plus, it got great reviews for long-range talking.

My Busy Books (Disney Planes and Pixar Turbo, $9.99 each from Barnes and Noble) – So, these books are like crack around my house. I may have mentioned them before. My kids call them “guys books,” because each book comes with a set of 10 or so character figurines in the back of it.

They keep the “guys” in little boxes and purses and hiding spots all over our house.  We seriously have over 100 of these things.

We have quite a few of these books already, but Bean saw two more he wanted at Barnes and Noble the last time we were there. So, we added the Turbo and Planes books to his collection.

On his actual birthday, we were at the wedding in Atlanta, but my sister did a fantastic job of making the day all about Bean Man. She had a birthday cake, birthday donuts, birthday balloons, and lots of birthday presents. She even let him open one with her secretly before anyone else got up! I thought that was super cute, and Bean thought it was really cool to do now that he was a big guy. We went to see “Rio 2” late that morning, too, and we let the kids pick any movie treats they wanted. It was so much fun!

We celebrated his birthday here at our house this past weekend with a joint birthday party. His best friend, Elle, and he had a pirate/pirate fairy themed party. We rented a giant inflatable water slide and had that in the back yard while people swam. We also had treasure buried in the sandbox for kids to dig for, and the adults enjoyed playing cornhole on the other side of the yard.

My favorite party details were this awesome watermelon pirate ship that Danielle made. She found the idea on Pinterest and nailed it! I also loved that we didn’t buy one of those store-bought theme cakes. Instead, we ordered chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with plain white frosting on them. Then, we put jeweled rings on half of the cupcakes and gold doubloons on the other half. They were so festive and cute, and they only cost $22.00 for 30 cupcakes! I think I paid $60 last year for a themed cake that fed 30 people. Such a savings!

Because it was a double party, there were a lot of people there. I think we had over 40 people attend. And it was a blast!

It was a week-long birthday celebration, and the birthday boy is officially pooped! Bean has slept for the last three days! But we all had a blast celebrating what a big, kind, smart, super awesome five-year-old he has become. He makes me one proud momma.