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!)
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."
When an octopus is threatened, it shoots out a cloud of dark ink. Our "ink" was grape juice concentrate.
And there you have an "Inky Drinky!"
She seems like a happy customer!
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!)
Here is Shelley with baby Jack! I haven't seen him since he was one day old, and he's 10ish weeks now!
What a sweetie!!
Neighbor Patrick, hamming it up as always! :D
The dinner spread - we brought in barbecue from Dickeys, and it was delicious!
Luken let me borrow his new jellyfish for the table centerpiece. Isn't it fun?
The kids had octopus hot dogs. Like you even thought for a moment it might be something else, haha!
Big girl Keeley carrying her own plate outside!
Party people chowing down!
Here's baby Silas - he is also pretty new. 11 weeks or so!
Sweet Gemma...
... and her baby sis Isla, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing since the moment of her very first breath!
The kids all got along exceedingly well, and had a lot of fun pulling and pushing each other around and around the yard!
Liv thought she'd observe some of the craziness from the comfort of the playhouse!
Zara was so proud of herself for wheeling the tricycle all over the yard!
Cake time, at long last! (That's what we're all at a party for anyway, right? ;))
The remnants of Mr. Fondant Stripey!
Cutie pie Ethan hamming it up (just like his Daddy!) with some frosting decorating his mouth!
Presents were next - Luken's FAVORITE part of the day, ha!
Keeley tried to sneak off with a rather noticeable package... silly girl!
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!
OK, back to regularly scheduled programming! ;)
Alas, all parties must come to an end...
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!
