My baby is now FIVE

Having a second child was a game changer. For quite sometime I thought to myself...can I really do this?  Can I handle this all? It wasn't easy. But my husband and I did it. We have the two most amazing boys on this planet (a little biased to say the least) and are thankful for them every single day.

Now the problem I'm facing...is they are growing up way too fast for me. Gavin is now at sleep away camp and Luke is Five. FIVE? WHAT? Ugh. MY BABY! I don't want him to get any older. I love his voice, his smell, his snuggles. I don't want to give any of that up.

But such is life. Kids grow up. And all I can do is make sure they grow up to be the best person they can be.

Every year we throw Luke a pool party over the July 4th weekend. We always get a huge turn out and kick off the summer in the most festive way possible.

Normally when you plan a party you plan for a 10% fall out. People get sick or cancel last minute. You usually get a handful who don't show up. Well not in my case. I had a 10% INCREASE! You heard me. Don't ask. We ended up with 92 people.

Thank heavens I had planned for this. 2 lifeguards in the pool (THE BEST MONEY I HAVE EVER SPENT), 4 camp counsellors to man the kids, a water slide and TONS of food. The one thing I did fall short on was favors. Lesson for the future...buy extra favors!!

We serve the same meal every year catered by Seasons of Southampton. It's totally over the top for a child's birthday party but this is not just a child's birthday party - it's also America's birthday and for America and Luke - you serve lobster. Needless to say, the food is always a hit. These guys know what they are doing!

The menu included lobster, mussels, BBQ chicken, corn, potatoes, coleslaw and watermelon. Your mouth watering? It should be. The food was delicious.

For the theme this year, Luke and I discussed throwing it as a true pool party. We built up a collection of floats from Big Mouth Inc. and wanted to blow them all up! We made a rule though - only 2 floats in the pool at a time. The rest were on the grass for guests to sit on and enjoy. We used tons of color inspired by the classic beach ball and served desserts and snacks to fit the theme.

When guests arrived I had a huge 3-tiered tray of fresh fruit and veggies from the farm. I also filled pails with chips, pretzels and popcorn.

No party of mine happens without customized water bottle labels. Maggie nailed the design and they looked so fun filled in a beverage bucket by our bar cart.

Best part of our bar? The beer selection. Abby and Maggie befriended the people at Narragansett, so we reached out to them about supplying some beer for the party. A few days later we received a shipment of these beers just for Luke's party. HOW LUCKY ARE WE?! Our guests were throwing back these summer shandies like they were going out of style.

For dessert I worked with Angela at Making that Cake to put together the cutest desserts for this pool party. I pretty much died over the cupcakes that were Teddy Grahams floating in a peach ring on top of a blue ("water") frosted vanilla cupcake. Does it get more perfect than this?!

Then there was the cake. Out of this world. Not even one slice was left...and yes this was as huge as it looks!

We capped the desserts off with some cookie sandwiches that I thought would make for a fun edition. Luckily the kids were able to swim off all this sugar as soon as they finished devouring all these goodies!

We sang Happy Birthday and had a few sub in kids by our side in Gavin's absence.

All in all it was the perfect day, party and celebration for my baby boy. Happy 5th Birthday Luke! You're growing up too fast. My heart can no longer handle this. I love you.