Happy Birthday Caleb!

This year my firstborn baby boy turned 12. Why does that make me feel old? Who knows, but it did. I'm over it now, but it bothered me a bit at the time.
This year Caleb's birthday also fell on the weekend of our Ladies conference at our church. We're on a rotating schedule for birthdays and parties. What I mean is, every other year we do an "invite your friends, have crazy fun and make a giant mess" party. Since we have 4 out of our 5 children's birthdays clustered in the space of two and a half months, we had to do something to make it manageable. One year is party year and the next is "family" party year. So far, its worked out well, but I think we're going to make one further adjustment...boys have party year and then the next year is the girls party year...on their respective birthday's, I mean.
All that to say, this was not a party year for Caleb, thankfully. I was quite busy with the Ladies conference and it would have been very hard to give the kind of party that would've been fun. It worked out beautifully anyway, and here's why...
The theme of our conference was "Abiding In Christ" and we used a Venetian theme for our decorating. In the foyer we had a life sized gondola that a friend (Princess of Paper Mache') made for us. It was awesome! Of course, every gondola needs gondoliers, right? Exactly, and that's where Caleb and his hand some comrade Mr. A came into play, literally. They were outfitted and set up to lip sync to a recording of the Three Tenors singing "O Sole Mio" . As you can see by the picture, they were totally into their role and did a fabulous job! After their premier in the gondola, they worked hard, as waiters, serving the ladies for lunch. He said it was a really great way to spend his birthday. It was fun to have him there and he did do a great job.
Sophia (with a little assistance from Brian) baked and frosted Caleb's birthday cake. After I got home in the afternoon, I helped her decorate it a little more. It was simple, but just right.
The last picture was for the benefit of his Grandma. She and Grampa got Caleb the Remote control Tarantula that you see on his head. lol...he thought it would be funny to act scared, which it was, but it was also funny when we realized that Ethan had made a funny face too without realizing it!
Caleb turned 12 and now we're on the road to the teen years. ...can't wait for that adventure!