Peter's Birthday Party

Peter had a little bit of trouble decided what he wanted to do for his birthday.  He didn't want to go the park because he did that last year.  Tumbleweeds was also out because he already did that.  He thought about seeing a movie, but there just wasn't anything good playing.  He also talked about bowling because one of his friends did a bowling party this year.

Finally, he settled on an almost-sleepover.  I assumed most kids his age wouldn't be up for an actual sleep over and the amount of chaos from kids staying here overnight was still a bit much for me to handle.  Especially knowing that a bunch of the kids he wanted to invite had never been over to play here before.






The party was from 6pm-10pm.  Grandma and Grandpa came over a bit early and the boys had fun showing Grandpa all the things he hadn't seen yet.  There was the little magnet doggy, that came from Grandma and Grandpa's house sometime.  Peter got some color changing pencils from school that had to be demonstrated.

Somehow Grady ended up laying down at Grandpa's feet and Grandpa sat bopping him with the balloons for a good five minutes.  I guess Grady was enjoying it.  Then there was a lot of static buildup after all of those balloons.

Grandma drew ninja faces on the balloons earlier in the day, so some of the ninjas had to pose with the boys and Grandpa.  Peter decided that he could draw some pretty good ninjas, so he blew up some of his own balloons and made some faces himself on the empty balloons.

I don't really know what was going on in this picture.  Grady saluting the judges or something.

Grandma was trying to get some nice pictures of the boys standing with Grandpa, but it was very difficult.  Peter had to do bunny ears.  I think Grandma showed the picture to Grandpa right afterwards and Grandpa called them alien antennae.  I was really surprised that Peter didn't correct him, but maybe he thought that sounded pretty good.

Finally, the party started.  Peter was so anxious, bouncing around and wondering when people would start arriving.  He checked the clock every few minutes starting at 4pm.  Most of the kids arrived right about 6pm.  We had a total of eight kids in the house, including Peter and Grady.  The first batch of kids to arrive raced outside to the trampoline and I raced out right behind them.  I didn't want anyone getting hurt, so I explained the rules of "one at a time and no flips".  One of the kids said "man, there's a lot of rules in this house".

The kids didn't eat much of the food, but they had fun making play nunchucks and ninja headbands.  Grandma and I sat cutting strips of duct tape for quite a while because the kids had a lot of trouble cutting it themselves.

They'd finish making one thing, then take it outside to fight bad guys and each other.  Luckily everything was foam so no one got hurt.  They'd "fight" for a few minutes, then come back in to make something more.

It was nearly 8pm before we sat down for cake (rice crispy treats cut out like people) and let Peter open presents.  The kids could still barely sit still.  They ate very little of the rice crispy treats and then went right back to playing outside.

Peter was very excited that he got some cool LEGO sets, an Angry Birds Star Wars set, a Carnivorous Plant growing kit and some Batman Chess pieces.  He opened some chess pieces from Grandma and there was a FedEx envelope wrapped too.  It contained the chess collection booklets for each of the chess pieces.  One of Peter's friends sees the FedEx envelope and starts shouting excitedly "oh, oh, I know what that is".  When Peter opened it, the other boys says "I knew it!".  I have no idea what that was about.

Peter got a couple comic books - some that he already had.  So he passed the two he already had on to Grady.  Grady very carefully took them aside and started thumbing through them right away.  Grady did really well with this being Peter's birthday and not getting presents himself.

We turned on Peter Pan at 8:15pm and everyone sat eating popcorn and watching for at least half an hour.  Peter and Grady were enthralled in the movie, along with a few of the other kids.  But I had to keep telling a couple kids "no sword fighting in the house".  They found a few foam swords in Peter's room and kept trying to raise the excitement level a bit more.

The movie was over just after 9:30pm and everyone went right back to playing and crafting.  I can't imagine how late the kids would have been up if they had spent the night.  Once everyone left a little after 10pm, we had Peter and Grady in bed by about 10:30pm.  They only slept in until 7:30am the next day, so they're still somewhat trying to catch up on their missed sleep.

Peter declared the party very fun so it was a success.  I think generally I like destination parties where I don't have to be in charge of everyone, but everything went pretty well.  I'd say the biggest challenge was the two kids (one boy and one girl) who kept trying to sneak off.  Rumor is they've been boyfriend/girlfriend in the past but they broke up a while ago.  Looked like the boy was trying to fan the flames of romance again.  It's not like I didn't have boyfriends at that age, but man, cool it at the birthday parties, kiddies!  :]

I think Peter's already started planning his next birthday party, but I can't remember what he's been talking about.  Grady is definitely anxious for his party now.  He's got the party list started in his head and I think he's saying McDonald's again.  I'm thinking we might have to change it up by the time December rolls around, but we'll see.