Luke's Birthday Parties

Friday was a pretty big day for us.  Nate and I spent the morning getting things ready for Luke's birthday party and then went and did a No-Missing-Work Party for Kelly's class real quick in the middle of it before hurrying back to get things going.  Luke requested an Angry Birds party, so we got the idea to do a lifesize version of Angry Birds.  We needed lots of space, so I reserved the church.  Luke was so cute when planning things.  He was very particular about who he was going to invite, and then a couple days later had 2 more people he wanted to invite.  One was a new friend he had just become friends with and the other was a kid who "doesn't ever get invited to birthday parties".  I thought it was so sweet of him to invite someone because of that.  He is such a sweet boy and such a good friend at school.  I love that about him!  He was kind of picky about what we were going to do at his party.  I had a hard time coming up with ideas he agreed with.  He thought of doing a bowling game, and then pinterest helped us with the pinata replacement.  (I'm so sick of pinatas!  I needed a different way to pack the kids' bags with candy that would be just as fun)  We decided on a dart game with balloons filled with candy.  A little dangerous, but it ended up being a lot of fun!  And nobody even came close to getting hurt.  Luke was totally dying to play it the whole time :).  And when our Angry Birds game wasn't all that we'd dreamt it would be, the balloons were a great recovery.  I'm really sad I didn't take more pictures!  The party was a crazy blur, and I really didn't have a free second with holding Jack, fixing the cake, and just plain running around like a crazy person.  I was slightly bummed that I'd not had more time for the cake, the balloon idea I'd had, and a few other things, but overall, the party was a success.  I knew it had been when I heard that one of the boys ran out to his Mom's car saying, "That was an AWESOME PARTY!  We got to use SHARP DARTS!!!"  hahaha.... yeah.  It was awesome :).  I love how easy little boys are to please.  They make these parties fun.  I know Luke had fun and that was most important :).

I loved watching him open his presents!  He was so good at showing his appreciation even for the gifts that weren't necessarily his favorite.  Very polite!

Luke's best friend Carter knows him too well!  Got him a stuffed Angry Bird :).  So cool.

After his friend party, we hurried home to unload boxes and balloons and gifts, and headed off to Carl's Jr. for his family party.  This was an interesting party.  We were so grateful to have Sarah and her boys, Nate's parents and Mom and Simon there.  It was super laid back and we didn't even bring our own ice cream and cake as planned since so few people were coming, we figured the ice cream sandwiches they sell there would be perfect, and saved myself the trouble.  I thought it was a lot of fun to sit and talk.  Everyone seemed to have a good enough time.  Luke informed me at the last minute (like, as I was telling him it was time to go, after at least an hour and a half of playing) that he doesn't like that playground.  Funny boy.  We've been having a lot of talks lately about how we have to choose to be happy and enjoy things because we want to.  It's not taking :).  But I think he had enough fun.  He just gets bored and all the fun he just had goes out the window.  He's normal.  And our big day was over.