We started the day as the birthday boy wanted, with donuts from our favorite corner store! Then we cleaned for the big 'old skool' Super Mario Party! For the first time Max got to pick two friends to invite and he named the neighbors, which immediately put him over budget since 'the neighbors' is 3 boys! And then his buddy from his school Sammy. We also had all sides of our immediate families so 8 kids total! It was a whirl wind! 
Robb made a super Mario shooting gallery for the kids to knock down with a beef gun, and stacking the boxes. We had a super Mario cake pan we had found at a nisswa flee market years ago! 
The party was great, he got so many presents ( lots of Legos and some $$) and then we were able to work out an impromptu sleepover with cousins Adam and Ryan! We were very jazzed as it was the first cousin sleepover! Can't think if a better gift for Max! ( I remember over a year ago we were driving home from a play time with our friends the Westies and Max said "mom I want to sleep at their house"-- I was like oh my goodness my little boy is getting so big ! He wants to have sleepovers)
We got papa Murphy mini murph's pizza for dinner and played a video game then tried to wrangle 5 kids to sleep! It was a great day!
The next date we had a quick family picture session, and I mean quick! 15 minutes outside in the freezing cold! 5 year and Christmas pics !
