Mr Sociable's turns 5 and leads a Rescue Party

It was Mr Sociable's 5th birthday on Saturday. It was a very fun (but exhausting) day.

In the morning we walked downstairs to show Mr Sociable his birthday surprise...

(see his excited face!) 

a new bike! A Hot Wheels bike, with a bag at the front filled with markers and flags for racing. It was a big hit!

We let him practise driving around the lounge-room while we made his birthday breakfast. I gave him his number "5" shirt to wear. It has become a bit of a tradition that I make him a number shirt each birthday, which he then delights in wearing for the rest of the year.

After breakfast, we took the kids for a bike-ride at the park (I did make them wait until 8am, to be kind to our neighbours!).

Mr Sociable played with a neighbour and then went to a birthday party of another girl from Prep. When we first received her invitation, I was a bit worried that no-one was going to come to Mr Sociable's party, but it all turned out fine on the day. There were plenty of kids at both parties!

Mr Sociable had a "Rescue Party" at the bike park. He loves police, firemen, paramedics, etc and playing "rescue" with his toys, so I decided to theme the party around that.

Wearing his "police" shirt that I made with iron-on t-shirt transfers

The kids and I made an "emergency room" from a large cardboard box. We covered it in white paper, made a sign for the front and put shoe-boxes inside as beds (unfortunately I only seem to have a photo of the back of it!). I made up little first aid boxes containing bandages and cheap bandaids (these were also in shoe boxes, with a red cross on the top). The kids had a great time covering the toys in bandaids!

The first-aid station

The toys were "rescued" from places around the park (trees, play equipment, etc) and carried to the emergency room on stretchers. I made the stretchers from some old curtain fabric and some broom sticks that I cut in half.

I made my boys matching shirts :)

Franky & I made a rescue helicopter pinata. I made the structure of it and Franky painted it.

I have been to some parties where the pinata is impossible to break open, so I tried not to make it too thick. I don't think I made it quite thick enough (5 layers), as not all the kids got a hit before the pinata broke open. But the kids were soon distracted by the toys, lollies, stickers and tattoos. 

My sister made an awesome "rescue" birthday cake. The kids were very excited and put in requests for parts of a fire-engine, or water, or an ambulance, etc.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaapy...."

We had the party at dinner-time and we looked at a few Christmas lights on the way home. The kids were so excited about the party and the presents that they were up until almost 10pm. We let Mr Sociable open 5 presents when we got home and we saved the rest for the next day. Both kids have enjoyed having new toys to play with this week (although I'm saving a couple of the lego models for an "at home" day in the school holidays).

It's hard to believe that my big boy is 5! He does seem to have suddenly matured this week - he keeps telling me that "5 year olds have good manners" ;)