Attack of the fives!

On April 4, 2012, Eli will be five years old! To celebrate this milestone, we had a little party on the weekend. Eli was pretty excited about sharing his birthday with his friends - he'd invited a couple from school, a couple from his daycare days, and his cousin Alora. Being an inclusive couple of guys, we'd also opened the invitation up to siblings, so in the end we had about a dozen boys and one girl (poor Alora!).

Along with Grandma and Grandad, Eli helped prepare our house for the onslaught...After expending a little energy whilst cleaning, and despite my calls for him to pace himself, Eli then primed himself for a big party with some pre-party balloon kicking.

 

Eli on vacuum duties, before the party

Pre-party balloon kicking

The balloon wars continued once Eli's friends had arrived. At one stage I lined them all up at the couch and had them run at me with their balloons....as you can see from the photo, Eli took to this challenge with ferocious enthusiasm!

The blue balloons were a hit...mostly on me.

I'd also organised a couple of party games for the boys (plus Alora) - including 'pin the soccer player on the soccer ball' (a variant on pin the tail on the donkey), musical statues and a mintie hunt in the backyard. Mercifully they all went off more or less without a hitch. It helped that Eli claimed that he collected the most Minties - local knowledge played it's part I think - and that he won the pin the soccer player game. Fortunately, he didn't lose the plot when he got bundled out of musical statues early on in the piece...

And then, it was on to the cake...we were very lucky to have Grandma's cake creating skills on offer and she produced the goods with an awesome blue monster cake!

Blowing out the five candles!

The awesome blue monster cake - created by Grandma!

 

Eli, feeling a bit awkward, during 'Happy Birthday'

Eli was really very lucky on the gift front too - here is a photo of him and his mates unwrapping and inspecting the loot!

Unwrapping the birthday booty!

Although we had initially forgotten to do it at the time of the cake cutting, I had mentioned to Eli the previous night that he probably should make a little speech at his party - at some point during the party he remembered this, so we gathered everyone together (which took some doing!) and Eli thanked everyone for coming, thanked them for the gifts and last but not least, he said that he hoped that everyone had enjoyed his party! He did a great job, and I was one very proud Dad.

With the formalities over, and after having been stationary for way too long coupled with being juiced up on sugary treats - the boys then went a bit ballistic with balloons again...photos don't really do the chaos justice... 

Balloon bashing!

I had to step in before someone lost an eye!

After some extra vigorous balloon bashing, I had to step in and order a time out. Fortunately there were no injuries and only a couple of balloons didn't survive to the end of the party.

After a very energetic (read exhausting!) two  hours, Eli and I handed out the party bags to his friends and we could finally relax and take stock of the carnage. Eli and Alora debriefed (and compared party bag treats) at the foot of the steps. 

Post-party and with party bags aplenty!

A couple of five year olds (for a few more months)!

After everyone had left, I gave Eli a present of my own - a small trophy that I'd had made for him. He's been so obsessed with trophies lately that I just couldn't resist - he was very happy, even though he and I couldn't quite put our fingers on exactly what activity or sport for which he was likely to be the reigning World Champion!

Winners are grinners!

Unspecified world domination.

All smiles after another successful birthday bash