Happy Birthday

 This year was different. This year for Drew's birthday I didn't invite all of my friends and their kids...I only invited Drew's school mates. This was his request and I felt that at age 5, I would try to let him make decisions!

So what theme did he want? Angry Birds!

 CHECK!


So who did he want to invite? All of his classmates! That is right, there were 12 five-year old kids. And I thought it would be so much easier if the parents dropped off, so it wouldn't be so crowded with 11 kids and 11 parents. All the parents were happy to drop off and only one stayed, which really worked out for us! Turns out trying to get 12 five-year old kids to all do the same thing at the same time takes a little bit of magic (or more adults to keep an eye on them)
We started off with a Make a Pig craft.

Then we started the games!   Drew wanted his party at home b/c he loves playing games. So we played: the Golden Egg Race (egg on end of spoon) and then you had to follow the spray painted line. The kids enjoyed that! Then we went inside and played hot angry bird...a lot like hot potato...but with an angry bird. Next we went out side and played Stomp the Piggie. You start at one point and then have to jump in a hula-hoop, run to another point carrying the hula-hoop, grab a green balloon and pop it. Then you run back (in the hula-hoop, of course). Then we went back inside to play Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Angry Bird.
At each start of a new game, I had kids tell me they didn't want to do it. And I was totally okay with that. I would let them know that they didn't have to do it but they did have to stay with us while we did it. Turns out they just wanted to play on the jungle gym set and with Drew's toys. But I didn't want this to turn into the world's largest play date with 12 kids and 3 adults! So I tried to keep them focused.

Then we ate!

At this point I was still going strong and had a lot of energy...so we went back outside and did our Obstacle Course. There was ball throwing, ball kicking, beam balancing, hurdle to go under, and a hunt for the angry bird doll in a small house stuffed with balloons. At this point, not a single kid said they didn't want to do this...and many wanted to make sure that they were going to get a turn!
What fun that was! It got more difficult b/c the kids wanted to run around and were just so full of energy!


After that we ate cake! We strategically saved the cake for last so they could go home with all that sugar in their little bodies! They sang and ate and played and the parents were very timely to pick up their children!

 It was a great day! Drew had such a good time! And at the end of the day, while I was beat and still had a very dirty house (two Kool-Aid spills and don't mention the food/crumbs), I had that very satisfied feeling that my son got the best party I could give him!

I missed seeing our regular bunch of friends (and kids) but still felt really blessed to get to enjoy such a wonderful day with my little man!