Chaz's 4th birthday party!

We have reached the age where I no longer get to pick birthday themes or locations. I can sway if I really want to, but this year I didn't fight the fight. Why? Well, my (almost) four year old walked into the living room about two months ago and said "Momma, I want my birthday to be Transformers at the Little Gym so I can sit in the middle of the parachute." Hmmmm, I thought. I will be roughly 9 months pregnant and this will require little to no work from me. SOLD!! I had flashbacks to last year and the months of effort it took. I just didn't think I would be able to pull it off this year. AND if you know me you know, if I don't do it perfectly it is a failure in my mind. So, Little Gym it is!

I found these cute invitations on Etsy. Note to friends: if you order these cute little "ticket style" invitations. they do not go through the mail. Even if your sweet husband goes to the post office and spends time with the post office workers in order to get the "perfect" amount of postage on them. Nope, they boomerang right back to your house and then you have to spend hours peeling postage off the envelopes and re-stuffing. But it all came with a giggle. A little one. At least they were cute, right?

I'm telling you, Little Gym is the way to go. All I was responsible for was the cake, invitations and party favors. They would have even done the invitations for me, but I wanted the cute ticket kind (Yeah, that worked out for me! HA!) It was wonderful. I just told them the theme and colors. They supplied everything! I just sat back and took pictures. LOVE!!! Oh and I made this shirt for him--this is always a must for the birthday party day. He picked the Transformer that was on the back. I then put a smaller one on the front with "Trans4mers" Ryan came up with that, I can take no credit. We had a little meltdown when he figured out the big picture was actually on the back--not a good 20 minutes at the Hill house.. But by the time we got to Little Gym he was a happy camper.

Before the kiddos wrecked havoc on the play area I had to get some pictures of the littlest ones.  Campbell had her to-die-for Toms on. O.M.G. I could just eat them up!!

And sweet Evan. Could he be any cuter?

And then they were off. I didn't get a chance to count the boys but I will tell you we only had five girls (and 3 of them were very little.) The amount of boys was totally overwhelming and added to the already normal craziness of Little Gym but I wouldn't have had it any other way. I heart boys!!

Now that Chaz is four we decided this was the year to invite some of his friends from school. We knew in advance that there was an overlapping party (and Chaz's invitations went out a week later, momma fail) so we didn't have high hopes for attendance. But we got lucky and 6 friends from his class joined us. Chaz was SO excited to see them. Thatcher was so cute and got into it from the beginning.

 Derrion was a little bit more hesitant.

Aiden was a little shy at first. Chaz was so sweet. He got a ball and went over to Aiden. He said "C'mon, it isn't scary! It is a lot of fun!!" He wouldn't leave until Aiden decided to come with him. What a sweet friend! Aiden gave Chaz a Skittle in return for being nice. Chaz promptly spit it out in my hand. He is very picky with his candy :)

He managed to warm up pretty quickly!

Of course all his cousins came for the festivities. Which, to be honest, is enough for a full party in and of itself.

My husband is one of the biggest kids and probably causes the most chaos when he is at Little Gym (along with my BIL Mike.) But the kids seem to LOVE him :)

Fun random playtime.

Who knows how to play "Smack the cake??"  Notice the little guy in the middle with his hand raised? I think he has been here once or twice or three or four times....and probably more than that!

Two of Chaz's best friends at school. Derrion and Nigel. He talks about them all.the.time.

Ready.to.go!

Birthday boy gets to go first!

 

And then everyone else got to go crazy!!

                    

Even some of the littliest kiddos got a chance (Turner and Campbell)

Love me the little ones!!

Sweet little Aubrey. Look at those cute little leg warmers!

More random play. As long as the kiddos had a mass amount of balls to throw at each other, they were happy. Remember when I said we were at about 95% boys??!?!?

Chaz trying to teach Turner how to hang with the big kids!

I love this little face!! And how cute is my sweet Meme watching through the widow?!?

Mike was tickling Brandon and Jackson, Ben quietly came over and squished in next to Jackson. He wanted his tickles too!!

And then it was time, time for my little guy's life to be complete. All he talked about for 2 months was his birthday party and the biggest part of his party was to sit on the white dot of the parachute because it was HIS birthday.. Well, if he had a bucket list we could mark this one off. He was over-the-moon happy.

What is this look? Well, Brandon made his way into the middle with Chaz (Chaz was surprisingly not upset by this) and that look is "Daddy, please-do-not-come-across-this-parachute-and-pull-me-up-by-one-arm-in-effort-to-get-me-out-of-the-middle-during-the-birthday-song look" Yeah, his wish was not granted.

And so we continue. We all walked around with a handle as we sang Happy Birthday to this little guy. He sat in the middle (on the white spot) and at that moment his day was complete.

A few more parachute games are always a must!!

 

One of my favorite little families. The Lanes. I mean seriously, could you just eat up little Cooper's cheeks or what?!?!?!

More random free time. Can you believe how big my boy is? It is still at little crazy to me!! *tear*

Mason attacking his daddy!!

And Chaz is an equal opportunity attacker. He doesn't just save this for Uncle Mike Mike and Daddy.

The little ones hung in there and played right along with the big kiddos.  Oh and Turner could not look anymore like his daddy in this picture. It is uncanny!

And as always one of the favorite times of the party -- "Everyone down on the white line, it is time to blow up the jump mat!" The kids LOVE this. I love their faces as they wait for the air to come on. You can see the anticipation!!

And then it is time. JUMP!! Go CRAZY!!!! Do the CHICKEN DANCE!!!

Hilarious chaos! And all the moms have the faces of "oh, they will sleep well tonight!"

In the middle of this I look over to see this..He was just sitting there. He said "They are crazy. They look silly Momma!" He was right! Silly kiddos!

And back down they go. Time to deflate! Again, the faces are priceless.

And then it was time for cake.. but first we must get rubrub (or hand sanitizer to you normal folk) Did I mention I love this place?

Telling me he was ready for his cake.

Wait.. Wait....

And then it was time!!!

He was so concerned about the figurines. He didn't want anyone to take them

Party favors. Again, I kind of took the easy way out.  Luggage tag, construction paper, Transformer stickers, Chick-fil-a cards, ribbon and balloons.

I am not sure what this face is about, but I think this one had a good time.

After Little Gym we headed to the house to open presents, eat pizza, watch the Razorbacks play, watch Notre Dame play and eat cake... in that order! Chaz got some great things but I was having a very hard time manning the camera, gift list and Chaz... So, forgive the minimal snapshots of present time. I am sure you have seen plenty of pics in this post ;)

Jackson helped clean up. Thanks, Jax!

He got a sweet Cars2 racecar outfit. He liked it, promise. He is upset because we wanted him to try it on... and while doing this, his cousins started looting his presents. They just wanted to play, he thought they were taking them home.

We had some fun playtime outside. Although I didn't get a picture, there was a HUGE military plane that kept flying over the backyard. I told Chaz that Mommy ordered a flyover just for his birthday *wink wink*

Mah made a Transformers cake for Chaz. AH-mazing! I should have taken a picture of her hands. They were stained dark, dark blue. A+ Mah!! She did say she was only making cakes for one round of grandkids birthdays... then she was done!

"Happy Birthday to you!!"

"And now we put our fingers in the cake"  Oh my, this kid!

After the sugar high wore off, I tossed all the little ones (sans Jackson--he wasn't having it!) in my bed to enjoy Chaz's new movie "The Sword and the Stone" I love that movie!

After the family dispersed I went to check on Chaz and this is what I found. Zonked (in his new pjs)

I consider this day a HUGE success! He was happy. The rest of the kiddos were happy. The Hogs won (we won't talk about the Notre Dame game) Yep, great day! Happy 4th birthday party day to my very special little guy. You are an amazing little boy!!

"Today you are you, that is truer than true! There is no one alive who is youer that you!!" ~ Dr Seuss.