ready, set...PLAY!

colton had another birthday. that means he is 8...which means he is my favorite number...which means he is getting older quickly...which means they all are getting older quickly...which means i am getting older quickly...which means i am not happy. with any of it.



this year, colt did not know what kind of birthday party he wanted. which is weird, because he normally has it planned several months in advance. this year, to help him decide, we asked him what his favorite thing to do is. he answered, rather quickly, "VIDEO GAMES!!" so, that began the brain storming, planning and organizing of the video game party. chad and i both agree that this themed party is not for the faint at heart. it was easily the most exhausting birthday party we've thrown yet. and there were only 7 kids. a...it was inside. b...it was all boys. and c...it involved wii. here is how it went.



we decided that he would only invite the boys this year. that was a first. then, we decided that it would be on friday night instead of during the day on saturday. ok...so far, so good. we then decided that we would have pizza. you can pop in and pick up a large pepperoni or a large cheese for $5 at little caesar's...so it was worth it to not cook. going along with the "everything boy" theme, we got IBC root beer so that the kids could use the old timey bottle opener on our wall. (the fact that these are twist off tops was on a need to know basis...) this ended up being one of the highlights for these boys. in fact...they would not even finish 1 root beer before thinking they need to pop the top off the next one. the cake was a 9x13 sheet cake that we turned in to a wii remote with the help of peppermints, blue bubble tape, marshmallow ropes, and lots of white icing. the favors were guitar hero stocking hats that chad found on clearance at best buy, mario cart candy, and nintendo game cube candy.

we had 3 stations set up. 1 wii in the living room for bowling; 1 wii, hooked up to a projector in the dining room for mario cart; and the playstation in the kitchen area for nascar thunder. the kids drew numbers for their starting slot, and then rotated around so that each kid got to play each game, changing partners each time. there was, at least 1 adult at each station recording points to determine the winner. i kept the score sheet and the adult at each station gave me each kid's score at the end of the rotation. i also secretly walked around and judged the kids on sportsmanship. they did not know that they were getting judged on this...which turned out to be a great lesson in the end. the little boy who won for sportsmanship (and it wasn't either of my two) was so proud and you could tell the other boys thought twice about their behavior. all-in-all...i think they had a lot of fun. well...i know colton did, anyway.

side note...(and this story happened exactly the way i am telling it to you)...during the day, when we were setting up the gaming stations, chad came through the backdoor carrying this huge screen computer monitor that i assumed he had borrowed from the church, along with the projector. i asked, "what is that?" to which chad replied, "a computer monitor." i said, "where did you get it?" and chad calmly stated, "i found it hidden in the bushes."