Dec's Paw Patrol Birthday Party

My streak of throwing the world’s sweatiest birthday parties continues. Never fear! I mean, we took a brief hiatus last year for the torrential downpour. But we are back and celebrated Dec’s fifth birthday in a hot and sweaty fashion with a garage full of cupcakes, fruit, and gummy bears and a backyard full of kids. Can you think of a better way to celebrate being a whole hand old?!?!

Before the afternoon festivities, Dec had soccer in the morning. There are only three teams in his little league, so his team was practicing while the other two teams had a game. The previous weekend, something had clicked for Dec during his game and he scored five goals. This Saturday, they were doing an intra-squad 3x3 scrimmage. Dec was lights out. Mike said that the coach kept switching up the line-ups and eventually it was Dec vs 5. He told me that he scored 20 goals. Mike verified this information. Holy smokes! Also, holy tired birthday boy!

Once D was home, he, Q, and I got busy decorating his cupcakes. I had promised to not do it without him! We ended up with a Paw Patrol party despite my best marketing efforts. He was delighted and that’s what matters. But I’m starting early on suggesting cool themes for next year. Because … Paw Patrol. Blech!

Shortly before the party, Gma and Gpa N pulled in with D’s birthday present and the joint bday gift for the crew … a new kayak!!! Everyone is pumped and the new green machine will be accompanying us camping and to the cabin this summer.

We invited all Dec’s school friends again (there are 10 of them … it’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. Unless you ask Auntie) as well as our usual crew of besties. Dec was super pumped that his friend Jack (now age 15 and taller than me) showed up to the party again this year. Jack is just the best and brought one of his old lacrosse sticks that he had cut down and restrung, just for D. After I confiscated the real lacrosse balls and replaced with a tennis ball for the party, Jack held a training camp on lacrosse for a mob of 4 and 5 year old boys. So sweet! J says D is already really good at lacrosse … “he just needs to stop shooting like a hockey player.”

All the kids had a really good time, and Dec really enjoyed having a bunch of his friends over. The girls bailed inside at some point to play barbies, which was totally fine. They let little bro have his moment in the sun … and they were done with the sun. The party wrapped up late afternoon and Declan headed inside to play with a few of the new things that I had let him open (we still have a few packages left, but as they get older, they are less into my “don’t open your presents at your party” strategy).

He got a super cool new Hot Wheels track from Gma and Gpa, but we simply could not get his cars to complete the loops (they kept falling off). He was sad. So I let him open one more present. In it were Hot Wheels racers that said on the package “great for tracks.” We took a chance – and victory. [apparently my construction of the gravity drop was not engineered exactly right either … sigh]

Despite it still being a million degrees out, all the kids wanted to do after dinner was go back outside. So that’s what they did. Then we put their dirty sweaty selves to bed – and I didn’t think about how I had just washed all the sheets.