My kids get friend birthday parties when they turn 4, 7, 10, etc. Bryce turns seven in just a couple days. He started talking about his party months ago. At age seven, helping to plan the party is equally exciting as having the actual event!
Bryce had lots of theme ideas: Lego, Space, Camping, and Angry Birds to name a few. But what he wanted most of all was a Farm themed party. Why? I have no idea. When I ask him, he just says, "because that's what I want!" And if that's what the boy wants, that's what the boy gets!
We had his party last Saturday. My buddy Pinterest helped us come up with ideas for food, decorations, and games. However, we wanted balloon animals, and Pinterest (and the Internet in general) really let us down in that area. We had to use our own inventiveness (imagine the horror!).
When Bryce's friends arrived, one of the first things they did was to select a pink balloon and turn it into their own pet pig.
I was impressed with the inventiveness and imagination of all the kids.
When they finished, the little piggies went into their pig pen (made by Aubree) for the duration of the party.
Next, the kids made farm animal bowling pins (out of toilet paper rolls. Okay... so I might have needed to swipe the tubes from the inside of many of my rolls of wrapping paper to get enough tubes...). Some of the kids were extremely careful with their decorations. Others drew on quick faces and wanted to get to the part where they got to throw balls at their creations!
The kids also got to try their hands at lassoing some stray cows, a surprisingly challenging task.
Soon it was time for lunch. Pinterest suggested numerous themed ideas (like pigs in a blanket), but Bryce really wanted turkey and cheese sandwiches. I'm always impressed how well kids eat at parties. I get that usually that's a result of "junk" type food, but this time around we served fairly typical lunch foods (sandwiches, veggies, fruit salad, chips, and jello jigglers), and the kids ate and ate and ate! Mark kept encouraging me, "remind them to save room for cake and ice cream!"
After lunch I reminded the kids that on a farm, everyone is expected to work hard, so if they wanted ice cream... they were going to have to make it themselves! Each kid got their own bag of ice-cream mixture put in another bag of ice and salt, and told to start shaking.
A good idea in theory... but soon all the bags started to leak and water was flying everywhere. We quickly double bagged all the concoctions, and the kids got back to their shaking. Eventually they made a shaking train and chanted their way around the kitchen. Very funny!
The ice cream didn't turn out as well as I'd envisioned (I think we needed more ice and more salt in each bag), but the kids seemed to enjoy the experience, and I guess that's what's most important, right?
To go along with the ice cream, Bryce requested a cow cake. We looked at lots of options. Bless the boy! The one he chose was well within my limited artistic abilities.
With just a few minutes left, Bryce got to open his presents. I still dream of a time when we can have present-less birthday parties, but when I suggested the idea to Bryce he responded, "that would be horrible!"
In the end, Bryce said it was better than he imagined. But then he told me he didn't want me to blog about it because, "he wanted his brain to be his computer."
His brain can be his computer, but I don't trust my brain's back-up system, so I went ahead and blogged about it anyway.
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