Luke's 5th Birthday Party

Due to some family conflicts, we decided to have Luke's birthday party the weekend before his birthday this year. Between work craziness and buying the house, I didn't feel like I had done enough to prepare, and I was stressing big time over the whole thing. We ended up with a total of 14 people at the party and for dinner afterwards, ranging in age from 76 years to 18 months, and I think it went fantastically well, even if I do say so myself! Not a whole lot of commentary to give, so I'll just share a few pictures with minimal babbling.

The decorations:



The cake, done by Mom again this year, and fabulous as always:



Opening presents:



Blowing out candles:



And a birthday first! Here is Luke actually *eating* a piece of his birthday cake for the very first time. Only took him 5 years! LOL (Yes, seriously, he has never eaten a piece of his own cake before, not even his first birthday party (where he threw it off his high chair tray and cried about the icing on his fingers). He just started eating cake in the last 6-8 months.)



I know there are some group shots floating around with many of the party attendees in them, but I didn't download them before everyone left, so these are about all I have.

BIL, SIL, and our niece stayed at our house with us. We hadn't seen them since Luke's birthday party last year. I think everyone was overwhelmed with the very exciting day on Saturday, so everyone, including the kids, looked about like this Sunday morning (after breakfast for 10 folks):



But it really went very very well, and I think (hope) everyone had as wonderful a time as they said they did.

Currently feeling: well partied