Birthday Bowling Party

Here's singing Happy Birthday. 
Ares' Birthday Bowling Party was today.  He and Matthew shared a party so we didn't have to do two different parties in the same week, or two weeks in a row.  The day started out nice.  We were relaxing all morning, before we went to the store(s) to pick up paper plates for the cakes.   Target didn't have any, (weird), Giant Eagle didn't have any character ones (OH, AND THEY DIDN'T HAVE HIS CAKE EITHER!!!) so we ended up going to Walmart, and he got to pick out 7 different packages of plates (Dispicable Me2, Superman, Bat-Man, and Avengers).  Back to the cake, the place didn't have our cake order.  I am SOO glad we went to pick up plates, because otherwise I'd have waited until we were on the way to the party to pick up the cake, since the store is right on the way.   They had 1 hour to make it, and they did.  We picked it up on our way, only after I was completely stressed and the awful anxiety levels almost put me in tears.  (AND, it was completely ordered, because MY NAME and the wrong date were on the transformers package that came with the cake!).  I'm so glad we ended up getting it, because Ares, Eve, Connor and Davis' favorite part of the party?  All said the cake.  All for different reasons, I'm sure, but all liked the cake.  Crisis averted, only 2 years taken off of my life.

Transformers Cake - and one happy 5 year old.  

I'm not quite sure how many people showed up, to be honest, it was complete pandemonium.  For me, I was completely overwhelmed, all of the kids loved it though.  I didn't get to talk to as many of the parents as I wanted to, I met a few of them, but it was so crazy.  I'm guessing there were about 21 kids there.   At their age, we don't really put names on the bowling lanes, they just grab balls and throw them down the alley as there's an open lane (or not) haha.  My phone died as soon as I got there, because I had it with me overnight, since Adam went out late last night.  Thanks to Abby who took these photos (and the video above) for us.

Casey helping Matthew with his cake

I think this is Eric. I'm quite surprised that it was
 possible for only one kid to be in one spot.  

Adam's hiding around the corner with some of the other fathers.
 I kind of hated him for that, because the cake part was so hard to do alone. 

During the cake part, Atlas was sleeping, and getting passed around so I could cut. 

Every kid got to leave with a Star Wars Lego shirt.  You can see the rack of shirts
plus some of the kids already wearing theirs. 

This came out better than any of my photos.  Thanks to us forgetting our
camera's, and thanks to the strobe lights and darkness. 

...but man, the kids had a great time. 

We had a few people over the house afterwards, and then we went out to dinner with Davis and his family in Twin Lakes.  Ares and Davis shared their love of popcorn shrimp, while I had Snow Crab legs and Adam had broiled  Halibut.  ALL of the food was awesome. 

Would anyone believe that Ares hasn't opened his gifts up yet?  Only 3 of them.   He was "Ah-sausted" and went to bed almost as soon as we got home from the restaurant.

Adam and I bought him a bicycle for his birthday, and we CANNOT WAIT to give it to him tomorrow!  We're beyond psyched, but first, he needs to open the gifts from his friends.