Troy's Carnival of Favorites

Troy turned 5 last week!

[This is the face he makes if you tell him to smile.]

We had his party this weekend. I asked what he wanted to do for his party, and he answered, "Play games."

"Like what kind of games?"

"Maybe Uno?"

I thought Uno might be hard with a bunch of 5-yr-olds (and maybe not so much fun), so we decided to throw together some carnival games based on all his favorite things.

Because this boy sure does have a lot of favorite things.

I am a notoriously, shall we say under-organized party planner. I get overwhelmed way too easily and consistently bite off more than I can chew. Fortunately this time I got Kate on board with the party planning. She was all over that.

Friday the girls were out of school, so I told Kate we needed to get ready for Troy's party (which was tomorrow). I hadn't even made so much as a shopping list yet when she sat down at the table with her notebook, where she'd already sketched four pages of plans.

"So do you have a plan for invitations and thank you cards?" she asked in a very practical, businesslike tone.

Invitations, done! They were evites. Thank you cards, no. But I felt very confident now leaving it all in Kate's capable hands.

This is the extent of our decorating.

Oh yeah. We're pretty much ready to hire ourselves out as professional party planners.

Here are the games she came up with. A quick trip to the dollar store and we were pretty much set.

Angry Birds

Travis was in charge of this one, and he built the slingshot himself! The prize was a pack of gum. (Troy loves gum.)

BYU Football Twister Toss

Troy loves BYU football. We even found these blue-and-white footballs, which doubled as prizes!

Thomas Ring Toss

And anyone who has ever met Troy knows how much he loves Thomas.

These were water bottles decorated to look like trains.

 The prize for this one was a train whistle. 

Um apparently at this point I stopped taking pictures?

We had a game Kate called "Hit-a-Target" where we threw wet sponge bombs at paper plate targets. It didn't really have anything to do with Troy's favorite things. 

And THEN I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of the fish pond! We fished for paper fish off the deck, with fishing poles with magnets on the end. Troy loves fishing with Dad.

The prize for this one is the best! A real goldfish!

Ours is named Bubbles.

Yep, their parents love me!

We also had a photo booth planned but forgot to do that one outside. When I explained it, only half the kids were interested in dressing up and letting me take their picture. But they sure turned out cute!

 Ha ha! Awesome!

You may recognize this bear cake from Brooklyn's birthday party six months ago. Troy specifically requested a bear cake, and since his very favorite thing is his Bear, I figured it would fit in with the "favorite things" party.

Actually he requested a bear cake that was sitting up, but... yeah, no.

(Here's Bear:)

 The best part had to be when it took him like 15 tries to blow out this candle! Ha!

Happy 5th Birthday Troy!

Here's to many more favorites ahead!