Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Birthday Party!

We invited a few close friends over to help us celebrate Luken turning the big F-I-V-E. It was an octopus-themed party, of course!

I had a brilliant idea earlier in the week. A beverage I like to call the "Inky Drinky." It was quite an ordeal to assemble all the parts I needed to pull this off, and Todd gets huge kudos for tracking down the gummy octopus candy that was integral to the whole thing!

Ms. Avin was my first customer! (She had had her face painted earlier in the day!)
Photobucket

So, you start with a clear cup, and put a gummy octopus on the bottom. (Octopuses like to hang out on the ocean floor, you know!)
Then you pour in some white grape juice, our "ocean."
Photobucket

When an octopus is threatened, it shoots out a cloud of dark ink. Our "ink" was grape juice concentrate.
Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket
And there you have an "Inky Drinky!"

She seems like a happy customer!
Photobucket

Keeley wore her octopus dress, of course, and paired it with her lovely Barbie dress up shoes that a sweet friend handed down to her last week (in addition to a ton of other super cute dress up stuff, yay!)
Photobucket

Here is Shelley with baby Jack! I haven't seen him since he was one day old, and he's 10ish weeks now!
Photobucket

What a sweetie!!
Photobucket

Neighbor Patrick, hamming it up as always! :D
Photobucket

The dinner spread - we brought in barbecue from Dickeys, and it was delicious!
Photobucket

Luken let me borrow his new jellyfish for the table centerpiece. Isn't it fun?
Photobucket

The kids had octopus hot dogs. Like you even thought for a moment it might be something else, haha!
Photobucket

Big girl Keeley carrying her own plate outside!
Photobucket

Party people chowing down!
Photobucket

Photobucket

Here's baby Silas - he is also pretty new. 11 weeks or so!
Photobucket

Sweet Gemma...
Photobucket

... and her baby sis Isla, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing since the moment of her very first breath!
Photobucket

The kids all got along exceedingly well, and had a lot of fun pulling and pushing each other around and around the yard!
Photobucket

Liv thought she'd observe some of the craziness from the comfort of the playhouse!
Photobucket

Zara was so proud of herself for wheeling the tricycle all over the yard!
Photobucket

Cake time, at long last! (That's what we're all at a party for anyway, right? ;))
Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

The remnants of Mr. Fondant Stripey!
Photobucket

Cutie pie Ethan hamming it up (just like his Daddy!) with some frosting decorating his mouth!
Photobucket

Presents were next - Luken's FAVORITE part of the day, ha!
Photobucket

Keeley tried to sneak off with a rather noticeable package... silly girl!
Photobucket

A little later I was alerted to major cuteness going on in Luken's room - he was reading to his buddies! When I got up there, I saw Reaves using the play kitchen's frying pan as a paddle against Luken's light pull. It was pretty funny!
Photobucket

OK, back to regularly scheduled programming! ;)
Photobucket

Alas, all parties must come to an end...
Photobucket

Luken had a GREAT time at his party. Thanks so much to our good friends for spending time with us and helping celebrate Luken's special day! We are so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives!

3 comments:

Detroit said...

You are such a cool and fun mom! I love all of the ideas and theme...I mean even the hot-dogs!!

Mama Red said...

We had a great time. You threw the perfect octopus party!!!! P.S. Good call on the Dickies. It was yummy!

Anonymous said...

The Trums were so glad to be "inked" in on the invitation list! Bec is just one of those moms whose attention to detail is bar-none rockin awesome! Not to say a word about what a blazingly talented photog she is! I am just beggin' to get my mitts on a copy of that pic of Isla.