"A Party of Special Magnificence"

There is this little boy in our house who is THISCLOSE to being five years old! So we threw him a party and invited all his friends. It seemed the thing to do.

He and I have been reading The Hobbit for... rather a long time now. It goes slow at our bedtime pace. We have only just gotten to the Attercop Spiders. Still, he lloooves it. Loves hobbit holes, and dwarves and dragons and all. So for his fifth birthday, the party was (loosely) hobbit themed. 

Didn't Kroger's bakery do a fantastic job??

He was thrilled with it. 

 We invited Miles' whole preschool class and daycare class to the party, and it worked perfectly because about a third of each came. 14 children. Hey, just one more "4" and you'd have 144 hobbit guests! And, absolutely NO Sackville-Bagginses showed up.

It's an allusion; don't worry about.

 I had very little time for photography! The children began by hunting for all the gold "treasure" the dragon stole. When they found the whole horde, I told them they'd (unfortunately) woken the dragon with all their noise and we'd have to slay him!

He lasted long enough for each child to have at least one go, and we were halfway through the second round when the six year old split him in two. Joy! and candy frenzy! It was perfect.

We hanged his remains as an example to other dragons. 

After the enormous, delicious pizza Jon brought, the kids got to play at the enormous playground next to our shelter.

 Rounded everyone back up for Miles to open his gifts (A set of fairy wings! A transformer! A rocket! A clay set! A new bag of crayons and coloring books! A marvelous haul!), and for him to give them birthday gifts (little trinkets) in proper hobbit fashion.

So, there was nothing to do but eat cake and play with the new bottle rocket.

Got em the first try!

 A group shot. I loved this group! I do hope he keeps seeing his old friends from time to time.

It's a small town, so it seems fairly likely!

Cheese!