Party Time!!!

Wow!  I really can't believe my favorite boy turned 8 last week!  Even though his birthday comes long after the birthdays of just about all of his friends, it always seems like it still comes too soon for me.  Not to get all sappy or whatever, but this means it is only 10 short years until my baby is considered a legal adult, and that is just plain ridiculous! Thankfully, I feel reasonably confident that he will not be an actual adult until long after that.  ;D

One of the good things about having a summer birthday is that it's great weather outside and every one has plenty of time to plan an AWESOME celebration!  This year marks the second time Aunt Megan has come in to help us pull of a birthday sleep over to top all birthday sleep overs!  She even brought her extreme cupcaking skills and made Max the only Emboar cupcakes that ever existed (trust me, I looked everywhere!).

Here are my favorite pics from the party and the actual day:

We made these online, printed them out, and glued them to the front of actual Pokemon cards.  Max passed them out to all of his friends on the last day of school and got RAVE reviews! 

Here is a table full of all of our party supplies (Thank you, Dollar General!) and Max and Aunt Megan doing some serious Pokemon research to figure out the names of the Pokemon figures we had.  There are seriously THOUSANDS Pokemons that evolve into different ones as they grow.  It is mind-boggling!

Megan and Max making Emboar noses out of Starbursts

In case you don't know who Emboar is, he is this guy:

A super strong Pokemon villian.  Keep him in mind for the big cupcake reveal ...  :)

After the boys got here, ran amok for about an hour, and scarfed down some pizza, we divided them up into teams for the Pokemon Challenge!

The white team:  Holden, Max, Will, and Thomas

The red team:  Austin, Benjamin, John, and Jackson

First, the teams had to race to the gazebo at the front of the neighborhood! I think that is close to a mile! When they got there they found some puzzle pieces, and had to put them together to get the first clue:

I was pretty impressed the teams were neck and neck when they found the location for challenge #2:

The classic no-handed donut challenge!

I really should have had my good camera with me for this, but it got left behind in the madness.  Oh well, blurry pics are better than none at all! :)

Each team had to wait for all of the members to finish before receiving their next clue:

The site of the next challenge (1709 Dunwoody) is actually quit a ways up the hill toward our house from this location, but both teams were so excited they just took off for the front of the neighborhood again!  (This was pretty hilarious to watch!)  They got all the way there and then took note of the number and headed back up the hill.  Some serious cardio to say the least! 

Challenge #3 was a water balloon target.  Each team had to hit the target 3 times before getting an envelope with the next challenge inside.  The teams were still neck and neck at this point! Exciting!

The white team finished first with the red team close behind!  As soon as they finished, each team received an envelope with a list of scavenger hunt items that they needed to collect in a pillow case and bring back to the house for their final challenge.  This was the part I was most excited about!  (I have great memories of slumber party scavenger hunts as a kid)

Aaaaaand this is also the part where the perfectly planned Pokemon Challenge veered off course ....

 Boys are different than girls.

Though I'm pretty sure the scavenger hunt portion of the Challenge would have been awesome had any of my neighbors been home and had this crazy bunch of kids been slighted less pumped full of adrenaline, it quickly disintegrated into a race back to the house and an epic shaving cream fight.  (The final challenge was supposed to involve covering everyone in shaving cream and then rinsing it off as fast as possible with water guns, but you can see where that went ...)

With the Challenge complete, a default tie was declared, Emboar cupcakes were served, and the rest of the night was everything an 8-year-old all nighter should be.  (Oh and I am not using the term "all nighter" loosely here.  I'm using it as in up. all. night. long.)  Evidence:

8th Birthday Wish!

Cate could not wait to get her paws on her very own Emboar cupcake!  She ate it in her trademark way, removing all toppings and returning the thoroughly licked stub to me :)

High stakes beyblade battles in the tent 

Late night marshmallow roasting ...

... leading to random experiments with fire and water ...

... leading to total backyard chaos ...

Beyond that, the night was full of video games, attempted movies (nobody really wanted to stay still all that long), and random middle of the night "creeper hunts" outside.  The boys all swore they saw a mysterious masked man out there, so they armed themselves with Nerf guns, glow sticks, light sabers, and any other weapons they could find to go hunt him down! (I'm still not exactly sure what they planned on doing with him once they found him, so I guess it's a pretty good thing that they never did.)

The morning looked a little something like this:

I thought I would make it easy for the parents to make a quick exit.  Sweet of me, I know ;D

These two best buddies finally pooped out around 5:00 am.  

9:00 a.m.  Looks like a lazy Sunday is in store for this bunch!

Thanks Aunt Megan for helping to make this party extra special!  I'm not sure how we will ever top this, but I know we are probably crazy enough to try! ;D

More birthday fun to come ...