Lenny is Five!

It's hard for me to believe that my little boy is five years old! He turned five this past Saturday and that was the same day that we had his party. I'll have to post sometime about the day he was born like I did for Brooke and Nathan's birthday. Today I will focus on his birthday party.

He has said for almost a year that he wanted a monster truck birthday party this time. I was so excited that he didn't want another Thomas party. His first birthday was Elmo, second birthday was Thomas, third birthday was Cars (only because I talked him out of Thomas), and fourth birthday was you guessed it--Thomas. So I was thrilled to have a monster truck party. And it was a lot of fun to plan! I had a blast!


The invitations for the party looked like tickets to a Monster Jam show. They were actually very cool. I was able to rent a room through the county parks and recreation which helped alot. I couldn't imagine having all of the kids in our house. That's the only problem with winter birthdays.

When the kids arrived at the party, they received a rubber bracelet that read "Monster Trucks Rock". This was their pass into the pit party. They were also able to get tattoos at the tattoo parlor.

After entering the pit party, there were four games for them to play and two art projects.

The games were:

Tire Toss--The kids tossed tennis balls through two big tires. This was Dominic's project and I must say that the tires looked really awesome.

Here is Lenny giving it a try with Aunt Kristi.


Pin the License Plate on the Monster Truck--Each of the kids had their very own license plate with their name on it. They then had to pin the license plate on the monster truck. Lenny was so excited to see that all of his friends had their own. Each time a new friend got to the party, Lenny ran over to get their license plate and then gave it to them.


Match That Truck--There were pictures of five different monster trucks and the kids had to match the name with the correct truck. The trucks were easier in case there were kids that don't know about monster trucks. I used Grave Digger, Monster Mutt, Blue Thunder, El Toro Loco, and Batman.


Qualify for the Finals--For this game, they raced a monster truck around a track and over a car to qualify for the finals. This was interesting with four and five year olds. It was cute though. This was also Dominic's project.

Lenny's friends Brooke and Michael with Brooke's mom.


The two art projects were:

Build a Monster Truck--The kids were able to build their own monster truck. They chose a background, body color, attached the monster tires and wheels, installed a window, and then decorated it however they wanted. I think this table was a big hit.

Here's Brendan and Karen building a truck.


Taylor building a truck.


Sign Making Booth--What's a monster truck rally without signs to cheer on your favorite truck? For this project, the kids made signs to cheer on their favorite monster jam birthday boy as he blew out the candles on his cake. It was so cute to watch and listen to the kids cheer Lenny on while waving their signs in the air.

Nathan holding a sign to cheer on his big brother.

Anthony-Glen cheering on his cousin as he blew out the candles.

Here they all are with their signs getting ready for the cake.



After the games and art projects, the "pit crew" headed over to their table for cake and ice cream. Here they all are.


I mentioned in an earlier post about a monster truck that Lenny had been asking for since July. The problem was that they haven't made that truck since 2002. It hasn't even raced for about that long either. He saw the truck at a friend's house who is older than him. The truck is called Great Bite and Lenny talks about it almost every day. No joke. I was so excited that I found a new one on ebay and ordered it right away. I put it on his birthday cake to surprise him. He was very excited when he saw it. Mom bought a cake at Costco and then I decorated it myself. The chocolate covered doughnut "tires" were a hit. They were requested by most of the kids when we were handing out the cake.


Lenny and Mikie eating cake.

I think Brooke enjoyed the ice cream.


Lenny's favorite part of birthday parties is to watch the kids open their presents. He gets so disappointed when they don't open the presents at the party. So we knew that he had to open his presents at the party. That was interesting. Tons of kids crowded around Lenny. It was difficult to keep up with who got him what. Thankfully my friend Karen was so kind to write everything down for me with good details.

Lenny really loved his birthday party. He kept talking about it after we got home. He was telling me what his favorite games were. My mom, sister, and her kids were staying at our house that night so Lenny had to sleep in our room with us. After he had fallen asleep, I was getting ready to go to bed when Lenny woke up. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, I liked all of your ideas for my birthday party." Then he went right back to sleep. It was so cute. That's one wonderful thing about Lenny. He really does appreciate things that you do for him and he will tell you too. I love my sweet little guy!

Here is a picture of Lenny and his friend Brooke right before everyone was getting ready to leave.


The kids all left with favor bags that had monster jam stickers, a grave digger pencil, a tire yo-yo, a tire filled with roll gum, a tire game, a Monster Jam t-shirt emblem, a truck note pad, some pixie stix, fruit snacks, their personalized license plates, and the trucks that they made. Lenny loved going through his favor bag. It was cute to listen to him get excited as he took things out of it.

The signs that the kids made at the party were given to Lenny to keep. He loves them! I knew he would and just as I thought, he carries them around and all of his cards. He loves to read them and show them all to us.

Happy Birthday Lenny!! You are the best! Daddy and I had a lot of fun planning your birthday party. We love you very much!