Eleanor's 5th birthday

Up to this point, we have celebrated our kids' birthdays on their actual birthday (instead of moving the party to a weekend) and it has worked well because none of our kids have been in school yet. It's been a good policy since our birthdays are all fairly close together.

Eleanor was able to decorate her birthday cake the night before.

On her birthday, she woke up and did the birthday string that we adopted a few years back...

...she opened presents...

...then Chris took her on a "Daddy-daughter-doughnut-date..."

...we went to swimming lessons with some new friends...

...then everyone came home for naps to prepare for Eleanor's birthday party! We invited our friends over on a weekday afternoon thinking that a few would be able to make it but probably not tons. Well, we had 49 (!!!) people over in our 1500 sq foot house. On a Wednesday afternoon. It was chaos. We had a towel rack pulled out of the wall, a curtain rod pulled out of the wall, a broken screen door, and lots of other little mishaps, but our hearts were so full to see all the people who came to celebrate Eleanor. We did an ice cream sundae party so everyone made their own sundaes and played. There were 17 adults present and 32 kids (28 of them were 5 and under). It was way crazier than I thought it would be.

After everyone left, we had dinner and then did birthday cake as a family.

Happy 5th birthday, Eleanor!!!