Nathan Turns Five!

Look at my chubby, adorable Nathan boy making his entrance five years ago! Oh, I just love looking back at newborn pictures and recalling those special, sacred memories. 

Nathan has been looking forward to and planning for this birthday for at least 2 months. He has been so excited to plan every detail of this party and was thrilled to invite all his friends.

He decided he wanted a "worker" theme, which isn't surprising if you know him. I was so very grateful when my sister-in-law, Carmin, had also just thrown a construction-themed party and offered to mail me her leftover supplies and decorations. SO nice and simplified my preparations!

We set up our dining area as our "hard hat" area. The kids decorated these hard hats with stickers and wore them for the whole party. It was a hit!

We held most of the party downstairs in our family room. I'm so grateful for this large space on a daily basis, but especially when hosting children! We turned on some music and played with these balloons while we waited for everyone to show up.

Nathan wanted a re-creation of his 3rd birthday cake and Trent was able to do a really cute, yet slightly different rendition :)

Some of our little hard hat decorators in person.

We ended up with a large group of kids. My better judgement said the age group indicated inviting fewer numbers but necessity and politeness indicated otherwise! We invited the preschool friends and then Nathan's closest friends and ended up with a houseful. It was SUPER high energy but Nathan loved it, and Trent and I and our house lived to tell about it :) It all went well and we concluded it did because we had something for people to do every single minute of the hour and a half so there wasn't time for too much free play which would have just been too crazy with 14 kids ages 3-5! 

While I was down stairs doing games etc, Trent was upstairs putting dinner together. On the menu: Hot Dog Men, chips, grapes, carrots, and juice boxes. 

Trent made these adorable hot dog people. 

Tried this one with a "hard hat."

A huddle for present opening...

Another huddle for the cake...

Nathan was pleased as punch with his party and I was so happy he was after all that anticipation. 

A few things I want to remember about you at five years old:

you-

- are a gentle peacemaker in our home.

-  have a very active imagination. Yesterday we were a groundhog family, today you are a fireman...

- ask a lot of questions. Some examples: How is metal made? Do snowplows ever get in accidents? What are the ingredients in cement? 

- enjoy preschool. You love Miss Bryn and your classmates! You don't ask to go when you don't have it but you enjoy going when you do.

- just started learning the violin. Your small fingers are so cute as they try to learn how to maneuver.

- sleep from 8 pm-7:30 am.

- love to play with your trucks, airplanes, or ship. You have a recent love of Legos developing. 

- love to play with Heidi. You enjoy climbing the tree out back or developing elaborate games inside. Today before she left for school you were practicing a "program" that you are planning to present to Daddy and I tonight.  

- enjoy eating scrambled eggs, pancakes, meat and cheese sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, chicken, rice, salad, chocolate.

- are a good helper in the kitchen. You love to help Mom cook. 

- continue to be such a hard worker. I am continually amazed at your focus and physical stamina when you  work on projects. 

- love to color.

- are naturally and organized and tidy person. You like to organize your desk drawers and tool box. 

- your love of learning academic things has really taken off lately. You are getting very close to taking off with reading! 

My sweet Nathan boy, you've been my little buddy since the day you were born. I love you so much!