birthday party recap

Now that I've had a good 48 hours to recuperate, I will post the birthday party happenings. Brennan seems to have gotten the raw end of the deal many years. His birthday usually falls somewhere around the Memorial Day weekend, and for the last 6 years or so, Bradley has been in a baseball tournament all during that weekend. Many times Brennan's birthday has been spent at the ball diamond, so we haven't done many friend parties. I wanted this year to be different. We were brainstorming ideas, and he was definite that he wanted a WWE party (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's the World Wrestling Entertainment). He is very into that right now. I thought it would be nice to invite all of the boys in his class instead of just a couple. Being a former teacher, I felt so awful when a child would have a birthday party and only a few kids were invited. Now I know you can't invite everyone all the time, but even when kids are told not to talk about it or make others feel bad, trust me,everyone always finds out, and kids can't keep their mouths shut. I remember some of those sad faces on the kids who didn't get invited and then had to listen to the others talk about all of the fun they were going to have. It always broke my heart. So Mom's idea was to have the party on the last day of school. School was dismissed at 11, we would walk to our house and have the party until 3. Mistake # 1- parties should not last 4 hours!!

Here is the cake I made- yes, I made it! Dawn, you should be proud of my piping and everything! My friend Dawn helped me make one of my first "real" cakes a few years ago for my mother-in-law's 60th. Anyway, the middle has the WWE logo. If you can't tell, it is to resemble a wrestling ring. I used Oreo cookie sticks for the post (which, by the way, are absolutely delicious!) and just red string for the ring. The little dudes are some wrestlers Brennan already had. I was pretty proud of my little cake, and it tasted quite good as well!

Here is the party set-up- the "calm before the storm." WWE abounds with plates, napkins, cups, hats, goodie bags, tablecloth, and balloons (of course, the balloons were popped within 30 seconds of the boys sitting down- do girls do this too????).

I was panicking at about 9 AM while I watched it pour, thunder, and lightning. I fully intended for us to have some (or as much as I could) of our day OUTSIDE!!! The boys were to bring their trunks and towels for slip n sliding. Thankfully the Lord answered my prayer, and it did clear off for a couple of hours during the party so we did get that in. Here they are ready to slip and ready to slide.

First activity was a water balloon toss. Then the water balloon fight commenced and the over 70 water balloons I spent almost an hour filling and tieing until my fingers were numb were gone in a matter of 3 minutes. Mistake #2- Don't waste your time with water balloons. Just go straight to large mammoth water guns and hoses. Much less work!

The boys had fun on the slip n slide! When we finally got a system going, it ran smoothly. Eventually it got a hole in it, which I can't say I'm too surprised at, but we just put the sprinkler next to it, and it worked just as well.

Mistake # 3- Do not assume the cat will enjoy being thrown down the slip n slide as much as an 8 year old boy does!

And what's a party without crafts??? I thought it would be fun to have the boys make their own championship belts. I traced one of Brennan's wrestling belts onto black foam to make the belts. The shiny gold middle is cardstock sprayed with gold spray paint. Then I printed off some WWE logos for them to glue in the middle of their belts. Some chose to color and decorate them as well. Finally I got velcro to fasten them. It worked pretty well and the boys seemed to like this.

Another craft we did (I forgot to take a picture of Brennan's) was making them into wrestlers. I printed off pictures of famous wrestlers. Then I scanned their class picture into my computer and printed off their pictures. They cut around their heads and placed them on the wrestlers' bodies. I tried to print them in sizes to match the wrestlers' heads as closely as I could. Some of them came out really well! I'll have to post Bren's if I think of it. His was pretty good.

Here are the boys modeling their belts. You can click on the picture to see the larger image.

Mistakes #4 and #5- Do not necessarily believe that the permanent adhesive on the back of the velcro pieces means it sticks well. As soon as the boys tried to take them off, one side of the adhesive pulled off and stuck to the other, so I had to go back through them and staple each one individually, as if I didn't have enough to keep me busy. Also do not wait until 10:30 the night before the party to begin assembling the craft projects. This will take 3 times longer than you think it will and you'll be up past 2 AM still not finished.

After the crafts, we had cake and presents, and then the rest of the (long) afternoon was spent trying to take Bradley down, and playing Rock Band or other various loud games. Unfortunately it started to rain right after I hung the wet towels and swim trunks out on my front deck, so we had to be inside for the last hour or so.

All in all, it went well. Lots of chaos, lots of noise, and lots of mess, but what did I expect with 9 2nd grade boys???? We did have a rough spot in the day with Brennan in tears, but I think we got it resolved. Do I think it was nice to invite all the boys in his class? Definitely. Would I do this again soon?? Doubtful.