How to limit the number of posts on the home page?

Question

I am working on my first WP site and am having some difficulty. In my theme's index.php page, I see the following code:

<?php 
query_posts(array(
  'category__not_in' => array($headline),
  'post__not_in' => $postnotin,
  'paged' => $paged,
  'numberposts' => 5
));
if ( have_posts() ): $postCount = 0; ?>
<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); $postCount++;?>
[more code....]

So - you see I'm trying to limit the number of posts on the home page to 5, which I thought was the default. Anyways, it is showing more than 5 and I can't seem to get it to work. I've tried "posts_per_page" without luck. If my theme is overwriting it, any ideas where that may be?

FWIW, I'm using the initiator theme by colorlabs

Thanks!!!

Answer 1

here's what I ended up doing:

<?php 
query_posts(array(
'category__not_in' => array($headline),
'post__not_in' => $postnotin,
'paged' => $paged,
'posts_per_page' => 5
));
if ( have_posts() ): $postCount = 0; ?>
<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); $postCount++;
if ($postCount < 6) {
?>
[all my code]

<?php } #end if ?> 
<?php endwhile;?>