James and Cooper's 5th Birthday Party!

Look at these two adorable little guys, then at 6 months old and now at their 5th birthday party.

Katryna and I decided to make life easier this year for ourselves and our friends and family (and the other preschool parents) and have a big joint birthday party for James and Cooper.

The boys are only 9 days apart and although over the years they haven't seen each other a ton other than birthday parties and odd get togethers, once they got into Busy Bee's together this year they just hit it off and became best buddies.

When we suggested a swimming birthday party together they were all over it and I was excited when they said yes to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme because I knew it would be a super easy theme to pull off with the decorations and goodie bags. 

Kat and I were a great team with this birthday party thing...I did the decor and she did the food and it all worked out just wonderful! We had our friend Jenn Parkin take photos for us so we didn't have to worry about it and our mothers were amazing helpers setting up and cleaning up. The daddies did their duty too by taking the boys swimming and Papa helped out a ton by walking a sick and cranky Jordie around the Complex for an hour and a half before and during the party.

Here are the decorations, goodie bags, card area and cupcakes

These are the yummy mint chocolate double stuffed Oreo cookie cupcakes that were made by Kat's amazing babysitter Cindy! So nice of her to help out with this! 

This was the card area (it was a twoonie party) and we thought it would be cute to put this book of baby pictures that I made for Kat and the other girls in our baby group. 

Gotta love Pinterest and the awesome TMNT goodie bag ideas I found on there. With a lot of help from Jimmy cutting out the small eye pieces we were able to pull these adorable things off. All of the kids loved them too which made all the hours worth it.

Individual turtle bags

Decorations I found at Party City in Nanaimo

Hot dogs and juice table! Hot dogs in the crock pot are the easiest party food ever!

Ninja turtle colored plates and napkins were a must!

 It was so heart warming to walk into the pool area and just hear a ton of kids and parents, all there to celebrate James and Cooper. This was a great idea and I'm so happy we did it! The lady at the Complex said that not many parents do a swimming rental party before the kids are old enough to go in alone because then you are forcing parents to come too. I was fine with that and we had almost 40 people swimming so I was happy with the preschool parents that did decide to bring their little ones. If James ever gets invited to a swimming party in the next few years before he's old enough to go in alone I would absolutely take him.

Kat may not have gotten the photo she was hoping for, but I got one! 

And we decided that because we weren't in the pool we would just take a selfie with the pool 

behind us instead

She finally got him to look at her for a picture! 

And him too!

I love this picture...this kid just loves the pool and was having so much fun! 

I love these next few pictures of the two birthday boys playing together.

The swimming was over and it was time for the lunch party to start so I snuck in a few snuggles with this grumpy little guy before the room was filled with big kids and parents.

Then he went on one more walk with his Papa. Dad says Jordie probably put on about 5000 steps in that hour and a half that they walked around and around the Complex. Thank god for Papa's help on this one! 

As soon as the kids ran into the room they went straight for the food

THIS was something you just don't see in Jordie's world. I put him down and told him to go over to see Papa and on the way there he walked up to Jenn's husband Bill who offered to give him a high five. Bill asked him if he wanted up and Jordie actually said "up" and then let him pick him up. This is just not something Jordie would usually EVER do. He is an easy going kid, but just not the most friendly kid. This Bill guy must have some magic toddler powers! :)

My favorite part of the party, the cupcake time! Funny enough Katryna forgot to bring the #5 candles but we improvised beautifully with some candles from the reception desk and we held them behind the cupcakes and it was a cute and fun memory for all of us. 

I think this might be my favorite photo that was taken the whole day, followed very closely by the next 4 in the series!

Love this one too!

Video of the birthday song singing

Concentrating so hard on getting into their cupcakes

Jordie was so tired and he just couldn't stay awake a moment longer. As soon as he got into Papa's arms he was out cold. 

I love this little guy! Look at Kaleb devour this cupcake! 

Gotta love the birthday boy who offers to help clean up the tables. He told Jim he wasn't helping him, he was actually helping Nana! 

Hugs for his best girl Katie!

Wanted to get a nice picture of the four of us, but not sure which one I like the best so I'm posting all three of them. 

And this was definitely one that I had to get, knowing that I had the one of them as babies too. I think this one turned out really cute! 

One last photo of me and my big 5 year old! 

 

This picture was taken before we left for the party but I really wanted to put it up because he worked really hard on Cooper's card.

The cards and money he got from his twoonie party. So much better than a bunch of presents that parents feel they have to buy for kids birthday parties. This way some can go into his RESP and the rest he can spend buying one big toy that he is going to love and play with all the time.

We've already decided to do a joint party again next year! Maybe next year we'll do a bouncy castle party because that is always a big hit with kids!