How many men does it take? (AKA Happy Birthday Caleb!)

This toy was clearly labeled "Ages 5+", but after it took the guys most of the party to transform Optimus Prime from "Attack Mode" to "Robot Mode", we have a different idea for it. See, we are going to put it away until Caleb graduates from high school and then, if he can successfully complete the transformation in less than 5 minutes, he doesn't have to go to college. Sound fair? Seriously...the guys actually resorted to looking at the instructions...all 13 easy steps.

So Sunday was Caleb's big day - turning 5 and celebrating at Chuck E. Cheese. (Can you believe he's already FIVE???) It was a ton of fun. The real question is, why didn't we do this sooner? It was great - we just walked in the door with presents and a cake and everything else was taken care of. No pre-party, during-party or after-party cleaning. No cooking. No planning games to keep the kids entertained. No assembling goodie-bags. Fantastic! Pop couldn't make it because he was feeling bad - hope you're better today, Pop! We definitely missed seeing Stefan, Nancy and the girls. We also wish Jan could have enjoyed the fun, but she's busy keeping babies in the womb right now, so we understand. Hopefully JR shared some of his Chuck E. Cheese goodies with her when he got home. I know he had lots of stories to tell her! And, yes, I'm still awake and typing this at 1:00 AM because I stupidly drank a caffeine-laden beverage this afternoon and now I can't sleep.

Caleb so enjoyed it all. We had a lot of great family/friends there to celebrate - Nana, Jason and JR, Chris and Sharon, Alain and Sabrina and Andrew, Marc and Teresa and Hayden, & Kathy and Johnna and Memphis. They played games and ate pizza and cake until they just couldn't stand it any longer! We are now the proud owners of 7,000 Transformer toys, several hundred Power Rangers and a few dozen crime fighters and/or superheroes...or at least that's what it feels like. Oh yeah, and the Cars Wii game. I personally think these are some of the most hideous toys ever created, but I can't admit that in my house - both Caleb and Chris would think I was crazy. But, I swear, I might have nightmares of men wearing Transformers masks and yelling, "Autobots, roll out." Whatever makes the kid happy, right?

Enjoy the pics (there are a LOT!) And be sure to scroll all the way to the end...the last picture is my favorite - I've been laughing over it all night!:

Enjoying the pizza:

Cole chillin' with Barney:

Memphis sliding:

Jason and JR:

Blowing out the candles:

Hayden with Chuck:

Caleb with Chuck:

Caleb as Optimus Prime

Presents galore:





JR, what a cutie!:


And just because Marc is such a good sport...LOL!!!