William is 5! {Five!}

In October we celebrated William's birthday with a backyard camp-out and some of his favorite friends. The two things that were really important to him this year were celebrating with friends at our house and somehow incorporating this tent. We spent and celebrated his actual birthday in Florida. On the morning of his fifth birthday he woke up to warm sunshine and salty breezes.

I give all of the credit for this party, the fishing game, the faux fire and the star garlands to Erica. She threw a {much more darling} camping birthday party for Ben when he turned four. We chatted about the details on the balcony in Destin over our morning coffee and I threw this party for William the Friday after we returned.
I took shortcuts, like re-using buntings (the red and white checked and burlap were from William's 3rd birthday), and sending a mass text message to dear friends in lieu of a paper invitation.

The campfire should never probably be in the tent. Let's be honest, this is the closest to camping out that I've been in over a decade.

The best parts for William were diving and jumping into the giant leaf pile with his buddies, eating sugar cookies from our favorite bakery and having his friends over to our house to play for a few hours.

For me, the best was watching my sweet birthday boy. He helped me with every last detail of this little party, so happy and excited for it to happen.

{After the party, I emailed Erica about how it went. Here's a little excerpt: } 
William was so absolutely precious though -- he helped me with literally every aspect and was such a cheerful and happy helper. It was he and I setting up yesterday and he did everything with such a cheerful heart (God definitely uses his attitude to convict me of mine!) and he greeted his friends at the door and loved every minute playing with them and then he stood at the door and handed out favor bags and thanked them when they left. It made my heart swell to see him honored in that way. I was proud of him and happy for him. Sometimes I think he gets left in Henry's shadow and as much as I wanted our family to be a part of celebrating him, it was really nice for him to have the playdate while Henry was at school so it was all his own.

Happy Birthday, to our five year old boy. We love you so!