Birthday boys

Jacob and Zachary had their birthday last week, and we threw them (nearly) identical parties, one day apart. This was a great plan! We only decorated once  

and even used the same cake!

Here's Jacob, waiting near the door for his guests to arrive:

In both parties, we sent the kids on a "space mission" to retrieve the abducted birthday cake.

 

They had to build rockets and a space station out of refrigerator boxes (a local appliance store donated three huge boxes to us--they would have given me a dozen, but I didn't have the van space to haul them all).

(Here's Zachary's personal spacecraft.)

 After they finished their space missions,

 they had defeated the aliens and could eat the cake.

For Jacob's party, which was a day after Zachary's, the aliens had already eaten five pieces of cake before the boys rescued it (this was the only way we could figure on making a cake last for two parties!). Fun times.