The McCleese Adventures: SNOW and Will's birthday

Ok, the next installment of all that has been going on with the McCleese's. Next on the list after Thanksgiving and Halloween was, of course, Will's 5th birthday! (Wes and I can't believe we have a 5 year old!! It's bittersweet. But Will is an amazing 5 yr old, for sure!) Will gets to celebrate his birthday over a week or so. We did his extended family b-day party at the Thanksgiving get-together. Then, on his real birthday he got his presents from us and we took cupcakes to his preschool class. THEN, he had his real b-day party at Build-a-Bear on Saturday, December 5th. We have, in the past, had really big birthday parties at our church (if you are in a gym, it's just as easy to have 20 kids as it is to have 10). Will really wanted to do something different for his party this year. He thought and thought and decided he really wanted to have it at Build-a-Bear. I thought that was sweet...he's always loved teddy bears. We told him he could only invite 4 friends (2 school and 2 church) along with his best buddy Caleb, who now lives in Tupelo, and our nephews. Surprisingly, Will easily agreed. I must say that the Build-a-Bear party was GREAT. The kids all got to build their own bear to take home, put a heart in it, name it, stuff it, etc. They did some fun things with the kids in the process and best of all...I just got to watch most of it!!! I highly recommend a party with them!

One of the best parts of his birthday was that Caleb came down from Tupelo to spend Friday night with us and come to the party with us. Will and Caleb have been best friends since they were 2 1/2 yrs old and started in Mothers Day Out at the FBCJ together. They were in SS together, Sunday night church, Wed night church, Rejoice bible study and mothers day out together. So they were together basically 5 days a week for some amount of time over almost 2 years. They are so sweet together and have a deep friendship that seems almost uncharacteristically so given their age. As Will says "no one is better than Caleb!" Caleb got here Friday evening and the boys played and played. They finally feel asleep about 10 and at 5:30 in the morning Will came in to tell us that they'd been up playing for "sooooo long" and could they please come in the living room. Sure enough, they'd been playing for awhile, b/c every toy in Will's room was out. And to top off having his favorite friend around...it's SNOWED Friday night. So we got the boys all dressed and headed out into the snow to play. Will said this was his best birthday EVER! I believe it, great buddy with him for the whole time, his closest friends at build-a-bear, and SNOW. It doesn't get a lot better!! Here are pics!