ALEXANDER AND BENJAMIN ARE 5!!

My how time flies....Alexander and Benjamin are 5 years old!
We had a great time celebrating, spreading the event out over an entire week. The festivities started off with a little family party with Shawn's mom and sister before they went back to Canada. Then the boys wanted to invite all the children in the neighborhood on their actual birthday so we had an outdoor party on that day. Finally, we had a smaller party for 10 friends on Saturday. I figure since I only have to do two birthdays for the four children, I can splurge a little!
So here are a few pictures from the festivities:

Here are the happy birthday boys with their cakes:

Shawn made some terrific pinatas for the birthday party on Saturday....I keep telling him he should make some money on the side with this little hobby....I really want to be able to come home next summer! Anyhow, he made 4 of them so each of the children got to pick which animal they wanted him to make. So to show off his handiwork, they posed with their favorite animal. Here is Jacob with his tiger:

Hannah with the elephant...for Grammy White and Mommy!

Benjamin and the lion

Alexander and the zebra

Shawn made some terrific pinatas and we are a little sad that they got bashed to bits after all that work! But the children all had a great time taking swings and, of course, collecting the sweeties that fell out!

Alexander getting ready to swing at the zebra

This one is a little fuzzy but I wanted to get Benjamin's pinata batting practice on here too.

The birthday boys having the first balloon race...it ended in a tie!

Jacob had a little difficulty with the balloon race but he did finish the course!

Hannah used her skirt to her advantage and won the race! There really is a balloon under there.

I know this a long post but I don't seem to post so often these days. So I have 3 more photos to share from the community birthday party after school on their actual birthday. There were alot of children who they invited so we just let them have a football match in the back garden, then played some water balloon games (thankfully it was about 20 degrees and sunny that day), and finished off with cupcakes and koolaid outside.

Here is a photo of some of the children in the midst of the football match...for all you Canadian folk, we mean soccer....yes, we have become accustomed to the Scottish lingo!

After the football match, we had a few water balloon toss games and then a "free for all" water balloon fight.

And here are the cupcakes, which were supposed to be in the shape of a football as well, but it didn't turn out so great in this photo....it's the smiling children you all want to see anyhow, right?