Eli Threw a Strike with this Birthday Party!

I've been a little busy the past couple of days getting ready for this ....

Eli has the really tough job of having to wait through everybody's birthdays each year to get to his. The other kids have birthdays in August, October and November. Then we have Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. His birthday is December 22nd. So I try to make it special, completely separate from Christmas. Our Simple Christmas certainly helped with that this year, since we didn't decorate until the day after his birthday and then took the decorations down before his birthday party. I try really, really hard to give him birthday celebrations that he remembers completely separate from Christmas.

So, anyway, Eli's patiently-awaited birthday party was today! He had a bowling party.

I made bowling t-shirts, yellow for the girls and blue for the boys ...

and a cake (No, I won't be featured on Cake Wars anytime soon, but it turned out better than I expected!) ...

The little white finger holes are tea lights embedded into the cake that we used as birthday candles.

We had trophies, candy and lots of fun!

Daddy was able to break away from work for a little while and stop for a visit. Eli was thrilled! And Kyndal, Dawson and Drake were there to share in the fun, and have some competitive bowling of their own.

Over all it was one of the easiest and most fun parties the kids have had! Eli was flipped out excited the whole time they were bowling, wanting the boys to beat the girls so bad! And his guests were so well-behaved that at times I was actually able to just sit and enjoy the fun they were having. It was a great day!

And the last birthday party of the season is complete. Whew! Now I really can relax! Oh, wait. I have a house to clean, school lessons to plan, four kids and a husband to take care of, four dogs and cat, and regular life to live. Never mind. Well at least the birthday parties are over.