When it came time for presents after lunch, Xander was so excited to open his first gift! I forgot to warn him that this set of grandparents always give clothes for birthdays and toys at Christmas. So when he tore into his present and saw these cool Spiderman pajamas, he said, "oh. clothes." I was mortified! But later, when it was time to get ready for bed (we left after supper on Saturday evening and put the kids in PJs before leaving), he was swooping around with his webbing under the arms of his jammies. He thinks they're pretty cool now. He also got a Transformers shirt that he really likes.
Sunday after church (I'm insane), we had the party for the boys. It was a Bionicle Barraki theme. If you have any interest in learning what this is about, click here. Bionicles in general are Xander's passion.
What a sad cake. I should have just bought one. It tasted good...Anyway, we had 8 boys and Maia at the party. It was very active. Last year, I was really worried because we invited all the boys in Xander's class (17), and I was a little scared of how to handle them for an hour and a half. I planned a lot of games and activities, and had a lot of help with execution, and things went so smoothly, I was surprised when parents started showing up.
So this year, I figured, "That wasn't so hard. I'll plan a couple of games, have a lot of space for them to run around (we had the party at church, not our house), let them play with Xander's Bionicles, have cake, presents, and we should be able to last a couple of hours."
Yeah.
If I learned anything from this year's birthday party, it's that structure is important. When you let 8-year-olds just run amok, they are really hard to reign back in. And an hour and a half is plenty of time for a party.
(Notice how blurry everyone is. They're moving really fast)I did plan a few activities. I thought this would be pretty fun, and I was proud of how cheap and creative I was. Back-story: Bionicle Barraki are underwater creatures, and their weapon is a "squid launcher," so how about if we have a slingshot and launch little rubber "squids" out on the lawn? I made the launcher with free stuff that Matt got at Exercise University (work training) the week before. This is a Pilates Magic Circle (which the two boys are holding on the sides) and some short exercise tubing. Some of the boys were really good at it! They all tried hard.
The other thing I had planned was decoding the place mats using the Bionicle coded alphabet. Some kids had more patience for this activity than others.
But Xander got some great presents, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves. After THAT party was over, we cleaned up really fast and headed back to our house for the family party. (Did I mention that I'm insane?) I had made a pot of chili and some apple crisp on Friday before we left for Morrisons, and we had relishes and dips. Mom, Jim, Rena, Lexi and Dad came over and we had a nice evening. Xander & Lexi disappeared (as usual), the rest of us ate for a while, then adjourned to the living room and talked for a nice long bit.
It was really cool. Everyone was relaxed, my mom & dad were telling stories about when they were married, and nobody was in a hurry to leave. I thought, "How amazing is this? Only God could heal this family." And He has. Sadly, Marie was not feeling well and didn't make the trip, and we missed her.
I'm thinking I might have everyone here (both sides of my family) for Thanksgiving...
Revolutionary.
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