Lennon turned 5!

Lennon is five....where did the past five years go?!!  Adam and I both agreed that we felt five was a big year--maybe it's just the starting kindergarten thing, or maybe it's just another year closer to growing up and farther away from baby-ness, I don't know. 

Lennon decided right after Christmas that he wanted an Angry Birds birthday party....then it was a Star Wars Angry Birds party....then he wanted a Despicable Me/Minions party. Over the matter of a couple weeks he kept flip-flopping from Angry Birds to Minions.  He finally decided that he wanted an Angry Birds party and a Minions birthday.  

Lennon helped a lot with the party preparations.  I printed Angry Bird coloring pages onto paper bags for the favor bags and he had a lot of fun coloring them.

He also helped with the Angry Bird Chewbacca pinata:

With the preparations he was very excited about his party...I came home from work one day and he even made me a thank you note for working so hard on his party!

 

Lennon doesn't love a ton of people around--it's too much for him.  So from the very beginning I asked him if he wanted a big party with all his friends or if he wanted a smaller party with just family. He kept saying big party, big party, so that's what I planned, just like every year.  However, the day before his party, he was starting to have an introversion flare-up.  As I was saying goodnight to him, he said he didn't want his big party the next day, that he wanted to do it another day--though it was too late for that.  I was expecting him to have a harder time at his party, though still wanting to make it exciting and special for him.  So he woke up the next morning to hanging Angry Birds and the house all decked out.

The night before we gave him some angry bird pants that I made him and he decided to wear the Star Wars pair and the birthday shirt Grandma Cindy made for him.  He said he was excited....

Just before friends started to arrive:

Lennon helped decorate his Star Wars Angry Birds cake with his new Tie Fighter Jenga game.  As I was writing "5th" on his cake, I got a little choked up in amazement at how big he's gotten, how awesome he is and how much we love him.

At his third birthday party, Lennon did not love having 'Happy Birthday' sung to him.  At his fourth birthday party, he loved it--was singing along with smiles. This year, it was a toss up, and he tolerated the experience.  Right before we did the birthday cake thing, we found him hiding under the table....that's completely and wonderfully Lennon!

Tesla, however, loved the party.  She was taking a nap when the party started, and, like a typical second child, I forgot about her!  Who knows how long she was awake and crying before I heard her!!

 

This was the first year that Lennon got to break open the pinata--had he been in a better mood, I think he would have been pretty psyched about it, but instead it was just "kind of cool" to him.

Our life-size Angry Birds game.  The painted dollar-store balls were a second try.  After using the Sharpie oil-based Paint Pens on them, and having them look awesome, I mistakenly thought that sealing them with a generic Rust-o-leum clear spray would seal them and make them last longer....except it made the entire ball super sticky and after a couple experiments from Grandpa to unstick them, I made another dollar store run and re-did them.  Lennon was great at helping to fill in the paint on the balls.  The game was a success, and is, in fact, still going strong in the basement!

Tesla and Grandpa having fun with the kazoos in the pinata:

Lennon's actual birthday was on Monday. It was Adam's first day at his new job as a Data Analyst for the State of Colorado.  Sad that he had to miss Lennon's birthday, but very exciting that he was off to to a job!!  He had been unemployed for about six months--looking back, it was definitely challenging, but I can see where our marriage and our family have been strengthened during this time.

The weather was a little cold and rainy so we didn't get to fulfill Lennon's big birthday request, which was mini-golf.  But we did get to go out to breakfast where he got a candle in his pancakes and was sung to.  After lunch we headed off to Magill's for ice cream, one of his favorite places in the world!

That's a happy boy, right there!

The night of his birthday, he got his Minions birthday.  We invited family over for homemade pizza, cake and presents. 

I got minion goggles for Lennon, Tesla and Jordon at the dollar store (they came with the clown nose, which didn't fit the minions theme, but the kids had fun with them!)

I was able to repurpose part of the cake from the birthday part into a Despicable Me cake:

Jordon and Lennon eating their pizza.  Lennon used to not like my pizza, but all I have to do now is add pepperoni and he'll gobble it up!

Lennon's favorite song (and Grandma Cindy's, too) is the Happy Song from Despicable Me.  I'm thankful that it's a popular song because all I have to do is flip through the radio in the car to find it and I will immediately have two kiddos dancing away in the back seat.  Lennon will immediately switch from a whiny, cranky boy to the happiest of kids, dancing and singing away the second he hears the song.  Unfortunately the appeal of the song is wearing off for Adam and I--mainly because he'll put the song on repeat on our computer and would listen to it ALL DAY if we let him.  We usually reach our limit after an hour straight of the Happy Song. 

However, I feel like the only other person that wouldn't tire of the song is Grandma--they created their own little dance party--here are the highlights:

Much happier being sung to this time:

We finally have our growth chart hung up.  Lennon was very excited to get measured and then write his name and put his five-year-old hand print up there!  He's about 40 inches tall!

Last year we started a birthday survey and did it again this year....here are some of his answers:

• Favorite Food: Mac & Cheese
• What are You Good At: Finding Stuff; Cutting with Scissors
• Favorite Holiday: Halloween because I like candy
• When you grow up, what are you going to be? A Driver and a Cooker
• When you were little, you used to...: I forgot
• What makes you happy?: Playing the Kindle
• Three things to describe you: Playful, likes to dance, very good at drawing