Saturday was Paxon’s 5th birthday party at the local bowling joint! We debated back and forth over the last week whether we should cancel it, because of the chance he could slip and fall, but we opted to carry on! He had been looking forward to it for months and we had to cancel his party last year because of Hurricane Ike, so we went forward and we are so glad we did because he had a BLAST! Thank you everyone!
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Pax and I made some invites a few weeks back! They were quite simple to make. For the pin, we printed the info on white cardstock, cut it out in the shape of a bowling pin, and cut some red cardstock for stripes. Then took black cardstock, traced a circle, cut it out, and used a hole punch for the 3 holes. Then a little brad to attach the two so you could move it around to fit in an envelope!
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Yes, that’s my baby….. on the floor of the bowling alley!
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I thought when I signed up for the birthday party we’d get a few lanes and table out in the middle of the place. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised we had our own little space with private lanes!
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A little pre-bowl before guests arrive. How cute are those shoes? I have a huge thing for little boys’ shoes, if you haven’t noticed?
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OK, friends. This is when the BLACK LIGHTS and loud music came in! Scout started crying for the rest of party, my visions of clear pictures of kids in retro bowling shoes, over…or any clear picture for that matter, and the birthday boy was in heaven!
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Friends begin to arrive. 
It looked like we were at a club, but it was a preschool birthday party…before noon! Holla!
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HA! I love this one of Paxon’s friend Christopher!
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Shout out to Stef for driving her sweet little man and her very beautiful, pregnant self all the way to Pax’s party! 
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Pizza time! Paxon really wanted Ben 10 plates and we found some at Wally World made of recycled material, how exciting! (Or how dorky of me to even say?)
What a warm feeling to watch your little babe with a giant grin while everyone sings Happy Birthday! I love it!
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Check out this cake, we planned it for months! HA! Yeh right! We planned on making cake dots to look like bowling balls after Pax saw them on Erin’s blog! After our failed attempt, we ended up making a frantic call to the cookie cake joint and picked this puppy up at 9:00pm Friday night, just in time!
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A few games and everyone was on their way! We trotted home with our gifts and had a great time opening them at home (the new trend in kid’s parties, fyi, I just recently learned this).
Moms playing the dancing game!
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We had a hard time finding eco-friendly party favors, but decided on these water bottles. I found them on Amazon, they are BPA free, biodegradable, recyclable, and reusable. I put a Ben 10 watch around each one, attached a balloon, and called them Ben 10 water bottles! Pax was sold, so that’s what we gave out!
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I learned so much from this year’s birthday party! Blending together homemade, eco-friendly,and what the birthday kid wants can be tricky…Oh and the failed attempts, bad pictures, and crazy life circumstances that popped up in my master plan! Relax a bit and don’t worry too much about the small stuff…keep up the happy in happy birthday!
Happy 5th Birthday Pax!!
And the birthday business is over. Whew…
what a fun day!! i got really sad looking at the pictures though…i’m sad i wasn’t there and i’m sad he’s 5!!! I’m looking at his little blue handprint on the thank you note from his first party! I have it on my memo board at work! Where does the time go? check in with me later in the week…good luck tomorrow! love you!