The Henry Phillips Express

Today we had Henry's 4th birthday party.  Originally we always said that we'd only do big parties on the odd numbered years, but...

In my defense, we had it at home.  I got the invites from Etsy and printed them at home.  It was from 2-4, so we only had to serve cake.  And I made the party favors.  And there was a pinata. 

And 16 4 years olds.

It was a BLAST.  A noisy, tiring, sugar filled blast!  I'd originally planned to have it all outside, but with cloudy skies and temps barely pushing 60, we pulled everything indoors which turned out for the best.

And here are the pictures that prove it.

The invite...

(And yes, this is the pic of the one I ordered.  We got it personalized with our info.)

From Anders Ruff.  Check out their store on Etsy. 

The cake...

Henry helped me to make it.  Chocolate Devil's Food Cake with buttercream icing.  The kids all wanted some of the marshmallow bumpers (the things that look like alligator eyeballs), so I just got the bag of Marshmallows from the pantry and passed them out.

Wooden Island of Sodor trains in the sunroom.  Wonderfully set up for maximum playing and minimum need for sharing by my excellent husband.

Lego Island of Sodor in the family room.  (Please disregard the child picking his nose on the couch.  The kid has allergies, OK?  And sometimes his Mommy forgets to Neosporin his nose at night.)

The kiddos in their train birthday shirts one of the teacher's at Henry's school made for them.

A little birthday love.

The herd of cats about to sing!

Blowing out the candles.  (With a little help from T.  Who, by the way, goes to live with her awesome forever family on Monday.  Playdates have been promised for the fall, but I know we will all miss her dearly.)

Pinata time.  Every got to hit it four times.  It still didn't break.  So then we pulled the toddler friendly strings.  But I filled it with too much candy so it didn't fall out.  (It called for 2 lbs of candy.  Um, I filled it with close to 10 lbs of candy.  Can't you tell my dad's a dentist?!)

Then it was time to pass out the party favors and play with them.  Each kid got their own train box made by yours truly.

 They were a hit. 

 A big hit.

 Even Gracie loved them, despite her hating them when I was making them.

Hey, Nathan.  You can't have three.  My Mommy made ones for each of your sisters, so just wait until you get home to make a train tower. 

We couldn't find Henry for awhile.  He and his girlfriend, Aimee, snuck off to eat the ENTIRE contents of the bags they filled up from the pinata.  Tonight, before going to bed he said, "I need to bwush my teeth.  And then I need to poop because I've got too much candy in my tummy."  Nice.

And nothing rounds out a good time like extra cuddles and tickles from Aunt Sonya. 

Happy (early) birthday my sweet boy! 

You have and continue to make our lives extraordinary!