We moved almost all of the furniture downstairs to upstairs, to make room for 11 kids. We don't have a ton of furniture, but what we had took up some space. Then we decorated to have it look like a jungle. That was fun. We hung streamers, they were the "vines", and we got some helium balloons. We hung some bananas from the chandelier and a stuffed monkey. Dave is the artist, so he made some pictures of animals and we stuck them on the walls, and Kayla helped too. One of the pictures she drew was a rock. =)
And then they came. What were we thinking having all these kids over?! No, it was really fun! Kinda crazy at times, but fun. There were a few moms there too, which was awesome to be able to have some extra hands. Thank you mommies!
Dave was just awesome! He is so good with kids. He headed up most of the stuff and I was his assistant. Mostly because he has a commanding voice and kids listen to him. When I talk most people don't even hear me. I'd say people don't even know I say hi to them, (if they don't see me and I'm using my voice) about 77.5% of the time.
While waiting for the other kids to arrive we played "Feed the Monkey". Dave fashioned this game from a U-haul box and used his artistic skills with construction paper. The kids stood behind the line and "fed" bananas to the monkey. All the kids loved this! We used real bananas! I got a ton at the store, good thing, because we went through a lot, and holy cow these kids chucked them pretty hard!
Next was "Pin the Tail on the Lion". (It was actually a Daniel and the Lion's den game shhh) =)
I think the kids were peeking though....most all of them got spot on! Little turkeys! =)
Then we played "Stuck in the Mud". They pretended they were hippos and crawled around on the ground and when the music stopped, whoever was stuck in the mud (Cardboard cutout taped to the carpet) got a sticker. Often the kids would just do that, stop right in the mud and not keep going. They are so cute. It was pretty fun too. (And crawling was soooo much better than running!)
They liked the music, so they all pretended to be their favorite animal to the music of Dora and friends version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
We had a snack break, with juice, crackers, fruit, veggies, and of course, animal cookies!
Next we played "Jungle Bingo". (All the squares had a picture of a jungle animal) We played until everyone got a bingo, and then kept on until everyone got blackout. We were surprised some of the younger ones did so well with it!
So, we really wanted a pinata. I was at Wal-Mart, browsing the clearance section, and found one! But, it was a New Year's champagne bottle, but it was on sale! I got it, determined we could turn it into something. So, that pinata was transformed into "The Monkey King". Props to Dave! Good job honey! It was such a nice day, we decided to go outside for the pinata. Dave told the kids a story to prep all the grabbing of candy. So, here is his story,
"Once upon a time there lived a money king. This monkey king loved candy! But, he wouldn't ever share it with his friends! So one day, a fairy came along and turned him into a pinata! So, the moral of the story is to share!"Good story, huh? Later we realized the story was told, and then they hit him, hmm, hopefully that wasn't taken as, "Whoever doesn't share, we'll beat him up!" 
The pinata worked out perfectly! All 11 kids got a chance to hit it. We went from youngest to oldest, and when the last kid went, she broke the pinata! It was awesome! We thought maybe we would have to break it for them, but it worked out great!
Presents were opened and Kayla was excited about all of them. Thanks friends!
Then, let them eat cake! I made an ice cream sandwich cake. I made a version of this for Kayla's 3rd birthday party. This recipe I got from kraftfoods.com. All the kids gathered around Kayla. It was time for Kayla to blow out her candles, and one of her friends, being helpful, blew them out with her. He proudly proclaimed, "Kayla, we did it! I helped!" Kayla was pretty sad! =( Thanks to my friend Bre, the idea of Kayla blowing a candle on her piece of cake worked! Birthdays are a big deal ya know!
After cake it was almost time to go. All the kids then ran around our house in circles. At one point they were grabbing all the streamers we had up. Hey! Great! Yes, pull them all off! They enjoyed ripping them off and up, and then we made a game of collecting them in a garbage bag! Worked for us! That was helpful of them!
All in all it was a lot of fun, and a lot of work too! Dave and I are still trying to decide what our family will do for birthday parties with friends. Maybe every other year? Kayla's 3rd bday we had a friend party, and last year was just a family party, and this year was a friend party.
What does everyone else do? Any opinions?
5 comments:
The party was SO fun - Jacob had a blast! Thank you for inviting us! We love Kayla :)
That sounds like so much fun. We need you guys to come help out with parties for our kids!
As for how often, we haven't been as good at regularly having friend birthday parties but one thing I'd recommend if you start doing it every other year is to make the even years the ones that have parties. That makes it so that the "special" years have parties (e.g. baptism 8, priesthood/YW 12, sweet 16). On the other hand, you could just plan to have special family parties on those years to avoid all the stress of friend parties. Either way, look ahead to how you want things in future years so you can get on the right track fairly early on.
That looks like it was a really fun party! Happy Birthday Kayla!
It was fun! I'm not as nice we just do family parties. Maybe next year I'll be up to a friend party for Naomi.
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