Can you believe Little Man is 5 already? My goodness, time flies.

In keeping with his Halloween costume, Little Man decided he wanted to have a ‘cowboy’ theme for his party. Hmm. OK. I rustled up a fun cowboy-ish invitation & we looked at cake photos online until he found the one he liked. Because his birthday fell on a Thursday this year, we didn’t do much on his birthday itself, but had his party today.

Of course, Grandma stopped by on Thursday & brought him a present, because you need to open at least one present on your actual birthday. (In Grandma’s world, anyway.  ) She brought over a really cool ‘western action gear’ set… with guns that make really loud noises and everything. They might end up being soooo cool that they go live at Grandma’s house, since all the best toys are there anyway.

Today we had a little family party - pizza, presents and cake, what more can a boy ask for?

Gazing longingly at the stick horse… he kept trying to steal it & play with it. 

Kiddo was kind enough to help Little Man navigate through the pile-o-presents.

Making a wish & getting ready to blow out all the candles

 Happy fifth birthday, Little Man! You’re growing up far too quickly.

Tonight Kiddo drove me to the high school so we could stand in a long line. At the end of that line I got to place an order for his graduation cap, gown, tassel and other assorted paraphernalia, including announcements and namecards.

Ugh.

Just over 6 months to go.

We had a fantastic night! DH came home in time to take Little Man and Sweet Girl out trick or treating, so Munchkin and I stayed at the house to, ah, ‘welcome’ the trick or treaters. Mwahahahahaaa… we had about 110 kids come to the door this year. That doesn’t include the kids that were too afraid to come past the driveway. I can’t imagine why they’d be nervous, really…

Anyway…

Here are Munchkin, Sweet Girl and Little Man, anxious to get going:

If you’re wondering why Munchkin is wearing that getup, well, here’s how he looks in the black lights. When he hides in the coffin and slowly sneaks out, he really creates an impression!

My costume. Little Man wouldn’t come near me. Can’t imagine why.

The pumpkins looked sooo cool with the fog machine. (These are pre-carved fake pumpkins. I’ve had them for years - they’re usually up in the kids’ window, but I bring them down onto the porch for trick-or-treating.)

Another fun year. Happy Halloween everyone!

Now tomorrow we get to take it all down. Ugh. Oh well, if it means Little Man will walk on the porch again, I guess it’s worth it! LOL

I promised Sweet Girl & Little Man all week that they’d get to carve their pumpkins. We started to do it on Monday, when Munchkin did his, but ran out of time. So this morning we brought their gourds in and I was sad to see that they’d already gotten rather soft and somewhat mushy on one side. Leery of cutting into that goo, I offered to let the kids paint their pumpkins instead. They loved the idea. I told them to go change into shirts that could get dirty/painted. They came down wearing Sweet Girl’s undershirts. ROFL. Oh well, they had a great time painting their pumpkins!

 

Off to do the last-minute preparations (change out the lights on the front porch to black lights, set up the fog machine, put the candy in the mini-coffin) then get the kids into their costumes and do my makeup! Happy Halloween, everyone! I’ll come back with some pics after I get everyone all done up. 

Oh, wait. Wrong holiday. Well, it’s easy to get confused when you’re doing two class parties, a birthday party and a family Halloween party all on the same day…

Today both Sweet Girl and Little Man had their class "Harvest Parties" - I took treats to both, but only had to stay & help in Sweet Girl’s class.

Immediately after school, we headed to the birthday party for my friend’s son at a local bowling alley. The kids all had a blast!

And from the bowling birthday party, we headed off to Terri & Mark’s for the family Halloween party. Everyone looked AWESOME and the food was fantastic, of course. LOL.

Rasta Mark?

DH feeling an ’80s groove

Uncle Lynn, straight from the pirate ship

Sweet Hermione

Cassie had the best afro EVER.

Tony was Facebook. lol

Grandma was a prisoner…

… and Mike and Kim were an amazing Cap’n Jack and Tinkerbell.

Poor Little Man slept through about 99.9% of the party. lol

Awesome eerie eyeballs, eh? lol

Help! The food is looking at me! I especially love how the eyeballs are color-coordinated with the foods they’ve invaded.

Fabulously crazy day, but I think I’m gonna go get rested up… tomorrow will be even crazier!