Boys' Bowling Birthday Bash

Happy 5th Birthday!!!

I had night shift at House 2 on this precious boy's birthday-eve! Did a little decorating after lights-out...

 And by 5:30am, the party had started. (Lucky me.)

The birthday boy and his bunkmates

We started the morning off right with breakfast in our pajamas! (Normally not really an option with the AM school routine)

(Note to Kaley - once again, Juan was very hesitant about wearing his pajamas outside of his regularly-scheduled pajama time.)

 I'm 5 today!

 This cutie also turned 4 later on in the weekend, so Pauline, (a rockstar volunteer from Holland,) and I took out the House 2 boys for some partying.

Feliz Cumpleanos, chicos!

So the Bolivian Birthday Tradition - face in the cake - oh my word...I swear this boy has been counting down 364 days to do this again. It's all he talked about all day. This morning, I stuck a candle in a chocolate-chip muffin for breakfast, and he tried to do it to that.

Finally his time to shine

Not surpring for anyone who knows the almost-4-year-old....but the face-in-the-cake was a no-go. :)

Here we are!

A big part of my job was making sure that everyone got to eat at least one eye, ear, mouth, or nose.

After eating, we headed to the bowling alley! Oh my word...maybe the most hilarious kid outing yet.

First of all, the form was impecable.

I laugh every time I look at these pictures again. Literally every way  you can think of not to throw a bowling ball, these guys threw the bowling ball.

He got a work-out, considering that the bowling ball must weigh more than he does. (And he LOVED every minute. He was the only one who got 2 spares, too. Ha!)

Getting a little coaching from Tia Pauline

And who knew that bowling was such a team sport? These guys were in it together the whole time. There was a lot of teamwork actually lifting the bowling balls...and then after every. throw. there was a crowd intensely watching the ball's every move. (Note - sometimes this took up to about 5 minutes per roll, as we didn't have a whole lot of powerful throws.)

Yes, this ball is moving so slowly that there is time to take a little nap in between throws.

Again, intensely watching. And again, the form. These boys must truly have been born to bowl.

Additionally, after every throw we had to all do a Happy Dance - no matter if 8 pins fell or 0 pins fell, (yes - despite the bumpers, we still managed to have a pretty high number of rolls with 0 pins falling. That's talent, y'all.)

This Happy Dance began before the ball even neared the pins. Instinct.

After rolling a spare :)

 Champ 

These two 5-year-olds are best buddies!

Team Shot
If it looks like they're smiling through the pain, maybe it's because nobody wanted to hold the kids' bowling balls in the picture. They probably all went home with hernias.

We cracked up at these hysterically goofy boys all night long - way too much fun!!

 Happy Birthday to one of my favorite boys in the entire world! 

Just for fun - 1 year ago on his 4th - saaaame outfit.

He's grown, huh? 

LOVE HIM!