It's Great to be 5!!!

It's been a rather traumatizing week here. First I send my first baby off to kindergarten and then he turns 5 all in the same week. Griffin doesn't seem to be phased by anything. When Millie and I woke him for school I asked him if he felt different today. He replied, "yes, I feel different. I'm 5." Here he is posing with his dog Millie before he heads out to school.

Griffin has been talking for almost a year now about how he wanted a surprise party for his birthday complete with a chocolate fountain. So, I threw him a surprise party with a chocolate fountain. Unfortunately it rained ALL day, so I had to tone down my yard decorations. When we pulled up after school he said, "Wow. I can't wait to see what it looks like inside."

No one was interested in waiting for me to take any pictures before diving in to the fun part. Griffinwas surprised though, and that was all that mattered to me.
He told me, "You got a chocolate founatin!"
"You told me you wanted a chocolate fountain." I replied.

"And voila! I have a chocolate fountain."

I think we all managed to make ourselves sick gorging on chocolate dipped foods. It's hard to resist. Hmmm. I wonder how this will taste? Is the pineapple good? Ooh the strawberries are good. You have to try the strawberries ... I think you get the idea.

Once the novelty of the flowing chocolate started to set in, we set about opening presents. His Godfather, Poppa Dave send him $5, which he was totally excited about. "I'm going to buy something that costs $5 with this!" he told me. His paper airplane kit from his Grandmother was a huge hit too. Apparantly I need more practice folding because I was told that Daddy did a better job. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or elated by that comment.

Here's his fabulous new gecko sweater.
After that, we went out to the garage to check out Daddy's gift. A brand new bike. well, brand new to us anyways. It's a fancy 21 speed mountain bike. Griffin was thrilled.

Since it was STILL RAINING, we didn't really get to test drive it. And it appears that the new bike might be slightly big for him. We'll get a better idea when we have a chance to get it outside the garage and he can really let loose.

After that we coaxed the crew back inside for pizza. While Garth and I got plates ready, Griffin and Harrison decided to see if the balloons could make them fly. Here's Harrison readying himself to jump down the stairs. Thank God I know where the urgent care is.

Here are my favorite chocolate mouth pictures.

Overall, I think he had a wonderful birthday. This is my favorite picture from the day, even with Millie yawning.