Porter has a birthday!...in August

Porter turned 6 in August with 'full day school' looming before us. I had a really hard time transitioning into motherhood when Porter was born. My Mom told me that 'time would fly by', but by the time he was six months old, I practically chastised her and claimed they were lies, saying that was the longest six months of my life!
Well, as it turns out, she was right. His six years of life have flown by and now I want them to slow down. I love that my kids are kids and love me unconditionally and truly wake up each morning with the attitude that it's a new day. When he turned 6, all of a sudden I was thinking, 'he's almost 8 which means he gets baptized...people who have 8 year olds are the 'old-young', and he's half way to 12 which is a teenager and so on and so forth.
Well, lets leave my girly, wishy, washy emotions aside for a moment to talk about his rockin' awesome birthday party. He really wanted to invite his whole kindergarten class for a party. Quite a few kids in his class had rented out community rooms and invited the whole class for their parties. He really loved his class and his teacher and so there was pull there BUT he also wanted to go go-karting. I told him he had to pick one because we couldn't take his whole kindergarten class go-karting. If he wanted to choose go-karting, only four friends could come and then we could race and go-kart. Go-karting won the day.
There was a re-do of the 'The Little Rascals', in the early 1990s. It is a new favorite of Porter's. One of the main plots climaxes is when Alfalfa wins the go-kart race. Porter is already inclined to anything with wheels, fast, race, etc. because of Lane but go-karting is the perfect kid way to do all of it.
Kind of embarrassing BUT last year, Porter had a dinosaur Porter and the invite said, 'Come for a Roarin' good time.' Clearly I am not too creative in the puns but on his invitation this year, it was printed on a tire that said, 'Come for a Roarin' good time.' Same word, different...noun...object? I didn't realize that until after. I guess 'roarin' is just so versatile, I couldn't help myself...again. It's really not limiting myself, it's just using what works...;)


First of all, these speed racer children needed to know I meant business with a fancy shmancy finish line Happy Birthday banner! Oh yah!


Of course, driver and vehicle must be well hydrated to perform at optimum levels.


Oh my word, Porter was in heaven. In large signs across the fence were warnings of 'no bumping'. Lane thought it would be hilarious to tell Porter the game was to bump everyone else. Porter, the poor guy, thinking he could actually trust his parent to lead him true, was bumping every kid in the party and whatever stranger happened to be on the track with them. The teenage kid running the track was yelling, 'no bumping!' and Lane was cheering him on. I won't elaborate other than to say, TYPICAL!!!
I learned a lot about go-karting this day. I set aside an hour for it. 10-15 minutes of driving there, two- 5 minute drives each, 10-15 minutes back. Well, the line ups, the ten thousand other children, the wait times, we were pushing it at trying to leave after two hours. My gosh! The night before I had made Lane make a car ramp so the kids could race hot wheel cars in the backyard, and I also made a red light/green light sign to play in the field behind our house. We will save those for a rainy day somewhere in the obscure future. We got home, scarfed down some car cake, opened presents and bid farewell to Porter's peeps.
The beauty of it is, nobody but the adults present knew any different. The kids LOVED the party. The go-karting was a huge hit! Everyone was so happy and content. Though it didn't go on without a flaw, it felt like it did because five, 6 year old reactions thinking this was 'so cool!' made it flawless.

Here's Porter's car cake that my friend Erin made for Porter. The desirable object on the car to receive on one's plate were the oreo wheels. Good thing we had extra oreos!


AND, what's a party without presents. Here's him, his doting brother Grady, and four of his buddies looking at the very exciting, boy toys. Transformers, monster trucks, lego, etc.


Everything must be themed, I say! Race car hot dogs! You accessorize your hot dog to look like a car, take a picture and then immediately dis-assemble. Pointless but I get points for awesome. The pointless and points come neck in neck sometimes.


Here are where my puns are redeemed! You're 'Wheelie' cool! And all the kids really were. Porter had a great time. I had fun putting it together and was only stressed during the party, as per usual...which means I had a good time in my own way. It went down in history for Porter and that could not make me any happier! Wa-hoo!