A Day for McKay

Yesterday McKay turned five.  Five is a big birthday in my mind--sort of the graduating point from "little kid" to "big kid."  I cannot believe how quickly the years have gone!  We decided to have a birthday party for McKay on the morning of his actual birthday.  That's the nice thing about this age--most of his friends are in afternoon preschool or just home with Mom all day--so it's possible to have a morning party like that.  We invited friends from his primary class, and a set of triplets who are in primary and preschool with him.  He said he wanted a superhero-themed party, but wasn't picky about which superhero(s) he wanted ("I don't care what superhero it is, as long as it's a superhero or ninja party!")  We were able to find lots of spiderman party supplies, so we had our theme.  My dear friend, Alicia (whose son was invited) offered to "trade" kids for the morning and take Annie so I could focus solely on the bigger kids.  She's just amazing like that.  

We played "Stick Spidy on his web."  

The boys LOVED it.  The girls were not terribly interested.  In fact, two of the three opted to play with Annie's princess castle rather than play.  I was totally ok with that.  I understand it was not the most girl-friendly party ever.  

We also played "Spiderman Obstacle Course", in which the kids had to try to get through Spidy's "webs" without touching them.  Everyone loved it, girls included.

We played another game called "Don't Eat Spidy" which was super simple and turned out to be everyone's favorite of all.  Which goes to show that for a five-year-old birthday party, keeping it simple is really ok.

McKay opened presents from his friends.

And then we had pizza and Spiderman cupcakes.

I ADORE this boy!

 I thought overall it turned out to be a raging success!

McKay selected Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday dinner, so later that evening we went there as a family.  It was the third time in two days we had pizza for a meal.  You know what they say about too much of a good thing.  I can go a LONG time before I will be ready to have pizza again!

After dinner and playing, we came home and had more cupcakes.

And opened the presents from Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa.

Annie's face says it all--we were pretty much partied out by the end of the night.  

Lest you think it was the perfect day for our little man, the night ended on a rough note.  After some extreme defiance and disobedience, McKay lost all of his birthday presents.  The night ended with two little boys crying their eyes out--one because he was making bad choices and losing his stuff, and the other because he felt so bad that his brother was making bad choices and losing his stuff.  I'll be honest--I felt like the meanest mom ever for not letting McKay use any of his birthday presents today, but he was obedient today and earned everything back for tomorrow.  Whew.

McKay is great.  He is a party waiting to happen!  He loves to joke and have fun.  As the middle child, he has a great relationship with both of his siblings.  He and Ty are best friends and usually play super well together.  Since he and Annie are home together in the mornings, they have a really special relationship, too.  McKay has this crazy stubborn streak in him that can be SO difficult at times, but he has a tender heart and is a really great kid.  I love him so much.