THE party.

The THE is capitilized because...well, it was awesome. :)
The theme was "Fire Trucks" per Cale's request.
The invite went out close to a month before his party, and initially I got a lot of no's.  But, as the time drew near, the guest list became close to 40 people (adults included).  Even a few extras showed up on the day of the party, so we had 18 kids in all (plus 4 babies of various ages). 
Food unrelated to the theme was kept simple with hotdogs, bags of chips and juice boxes or water/soda for the adults.
We also had matches (pretzel sticks tipped in red almond bark), cake pops, a fire engine cake and cookies that looked like burning houses.
Something I had looked into quite early on was having the kids all meet at a fire station, or have a truck come to the house.  I called around and it didn't look like it would become a reality, until a firefighter in our church gave us the hook up! 
We didn't tell the kids about it in case there was an emergency...so watching their faces when the truck backed up down our long driveway was truly priceless.
I decorated the inside of our house quite a bit, but truly, we didn't spend much time indoors.  Most of the party consisted of the guests playing on the trampoline, playing in the sandbox, playing with Cale's new (used) tool table...and pretty much running around crazy.
Seems as though everyone had a good time, so I'd call it a success.
Megersa keeps reminding me that his birthday is in September. :)

okay, now for the pictures:

Help! Our house is on fire!!

 I got hats for all the kids and put their names on them.  I made the brick wall from leftover cardboard boxes (from our move) and spray painted it red then duct taped it together with silver tpae.  I made 'buildings' out of tissue boxes that were on fire (tissue paper) and hung raindrops to cool the flames.  I didn't get a clear shot of the birthday cake. DRAT!  I suppose it was for the best...it turned out more pink and dark green then red and gray.  lol.

the "burning house" cookies...they were ridiculously big.

 I had this banner printed out via Vistaprint.  It says "Sound the alarm!  Firefighter Nester turns 5!"

"Hershey" the fire dog.  Yes, I drew it myself.  Hubby helped with some of the tails! :)

This was certainly a work in progress.  My friend Janet helped me come over to construct it, and then when I started painting...I just kept adding and adding.  There are 2 doors to get in - around the back and on the other side.  The kids (especially my little ones) thought it was superb.

All the kiddies just lined up like that without prompting...they were super excited to see the truck coming to our house!  The man in the blue shirt with the gray cap is the firefighter in our church who was able to orchestrate the meeting. :)

Some party guests playing in our sandbox.

And at the tool table. :)

 Crazy kids jumping on the trampoline! :)

 Mommy & Thad (he slept for a good portion of the party).

  They passed out fire hats to all the kids.  So, most kids went home with 2. :)

 The kids seem to really enjoy this part!

 The game in action.

Here's the birthday boy, wearing a real fire fighters coat! :)

 Daddy & Shepper. Isn't he an adorable fireman?

  Megersa checking out the truck.



We had an obstacle course "on deck" in case the fire truck wasn't able to come, but we didn't end up having to use it.  After the truck left, we ate and then went inside for presents, then cake.  After that some guests stayed, but it was wrapping up.  Definitely a good time. 

Something I'm sure Cale will remember for awhile. :)

And something we will all need to recover from for awhile...lol.