He was nervous about the party...at 5, he already feels so much social pressure, and he was worried that his school friends would not want to come. His worry was unfounded...and he was beside himself with joy when all of the RSVPs came rolling in. He invited all of the boys in his class, along with 5 other non-school friends. All but one ended up attending, and he felt like the birthday king!
I'm not sure where he came up with the idea, but he requested "knights, dragons, castles, and a little bit princess" for his party theme. He helped design this invitation - and was adamant that my first few efforts were "too cute." He wanted a fiercer-looking dragon and knight. This was our compromise version. He rolled the invitations up like scrolls and mailed them off...labeling the envelopes himself!
Here's Devon with his party guests (minus Rylee, who seems to have ducked out of the photo shoot!).
Devon really wanted a castle cake...he spent hours looking at different cakes online (and watching "how to make castle cakes" on youtube). He thought the cake came out "okay, but not quite what I had in mind." He couldn't quite articulate what he had in mind, and eventually decided that this one would do just fine.
Our weather was perfect...all week, they had been calling for severe thunderstorms on Saturday. At the last minute, things turned around and we were fortunate to have beautiful blue skies and 65 degree weather. It was a good thing, as we had a lot of outdoor activities planned.
We had a castle bounce house...a bit of a splurge, from a mom who shared Devon's worries that kids wouldn't want to come. The kids loved the bouncing of course, but also seemed to like all of the other activities. They decorated knight shields, and stuck adhesive "jewels" on plastic wine glasses to create their own medieval goblets. They played "pin the fire on the dragon" (with knight or princess masks for prizes) and eagerly participated in an obstacle course (with personalized knight/princess coloring books for prizes). In the obstacle course, they got to rescue a princess (a doll stuck under a laundry basket with a dragon on top), go through a "baby dragon" tunnel, gallop on their pretend horses, jump over a moat, and (their favorite part) go through a dragon cave (aka under Grandma and Bob's deck) where there were dangling gummy worms that they had to eat without using their hands. We topped everything off a dragon pinata.
After 2 hours, we sent the kids home with smiles on their face, with their bags of prizes and art projects, balloons, and medieval-theme gift boxes. And then the adults rested.
Here are a few photos from the big day....
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