Logan turns five!

We celebrated Logan's 5th birthday today! The theme for the day was Mars and the solar system. So we started out with Marscakes (red pancakes), Saturn rings (bacon strips) and Jupiter winds (scrambled eggs).

Not only is it his actual birthday, but since it's Saturday we also hosted his party today as well. This year we decided to go small - we told him he could choose six friends to invite, and all but one were able to come so we had a total of four boys and two girls (poor Zachary is still under the weather, went upstairs for an early nap and ended up sleeping through the entire party.)

We've posted a Web Gallery of party photos here (77 photos total - it may be split into two pages). I made the invitations by hand from a template in a magazine (oh, OK, I admit it was Martha Stewart Kids). When the kids showed up we started out just playing with Logan's toys...some kids played Star Wars in the basement while others enjoyed the piano. We then had lunch and played three games. The first was Pop Rocket Long Shot, in which each child got to launch four pop rockets at a set of targets. Scores were based on the distance each rocket went. Amelia won with 85 points.

The second game was Pin the Rover on Mars - pretty self-explanatory. Charlie was the winner of that one. Third, we played a space version of Hot Potato we called "Sizzling Moon Rock." Logan won the game, but we had coached him before the party that he could play the games but not win the prizes since he was the host, and we were very proud at how graciously, with no prompting, he gave the prize to the second-place winner, Sophie.

After games Logan got to open his presents, and then we brought out the cake. I'm pretty proud of this cake...it was red velvet, and I baked it using a tempered glass mixing bowl as a pan so it had a round shape. Then I tinted the frosting red, and sprinkled it with a combination of crumbled up chocolate sandwich cookies, red velvet cake crumbs and a little red-colored decorating sugar. Jason found a cool set of Mars Rover matchbox figurines on Ebay and I bought a NASA play set and we used some of those on the cake. It turned out really cute, was tasty and most importantly was a hit with Logan and the kids.

A great time was had by all. After the guests left we spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing with his gifts. Later we gave him our gifts (we kept it small but he did get the Ladybug Land he's been asking for) For dinner I served spaghetti and Marsballs (you can probably figure that one out). Zach was concerned that he'd missed the cake but his tummy's been a little off today so I promised him we'd save him a piece for when he was feeling better.

It's hard to believe that our little big boy is five years old already. That five years ago Jason and I miraculously transformed from couple to family. Honestly it's hard to remember what our life was like BK - before kids. Maybe a little more sleeping in on the weekends, but definitely not as much love.