You can never have too many Legos

I guess it's time I finally recapped C's seventh birthday party shenanigans. We pushed the birthday party back about 5 days from his actual birthday in order to give me time to mentally recover from all of the Christmas festivities. I think next year I will look at pushing it back even farther, although next year I have already vowed that the party will not take place here at the House of Crackers (Of course I also said that after his sixth birthday...)

Overall, I have to say the party went really well. We had 6 kids who were able to make it & from what I could tell all 6 seemed to have a pretty good time. Thankfully there were no costumes to make this year (see blog post on last year's Jedi ponchos). Most of my pre-party preparation (try to say that 3 times fast) involved the sorting of 6 pounds (yes, 6 pounds) of Legos. I had a couple party activities planned & I thought the Legos would work well for the games & also provide me with a nice parting gift for all the kids who came to wish C a happy birthday.

We had a pizza lunch followed by a few exciting games of Lego Bingo. Don't you love how excited 6 and 7 year olds get participating in any activity where there is a potential to earn candy? After we got them properly sugared up, we went down to the playroom & passed out a bag of about 70 Legos to each kid. We then had a couple of rounds where the kids built something on their own & tried to see if the other party-goers could guess what they created. What was really nice about this for Mr. Crackers & myself was that while the kids were busy building the room was actually pretty quiet. Wahoo!

Since all of the kids appeared to have come down from their earlier sugar high, we decided it was time to give them their next fix so we all trooped back upstairs for ice cream sandwiches (C doesn't like cake). This had to be the lowest maintenance party I've ever pulled off. We didn't even need to pass out spoons for heavens sakes. Mr. Crackers just gave each kid an ice cream sandwich and a plate & we were done. Voila!

After a C opened his presents, we all headed downstairs for about 30 minutes of unplanned fun time. And that was then things began to unravel a bit... The two girls who came to the party were great! They went downstairs, found the art supplies & immediately started coloring & making pretty pictures to give to their Moms. The 5 boys (including my own child) decided to get into a game of dodge ball...in the basement...with real basketballs. Yikes! Mr. Crackers & I tried to re-direct them into other activities, but spontaneous wrestling matches kept breaking out all over the basement. Meanwhile, the girls were still peacefully coloring...

Finally Mr. Crackers & I broke out the parachute and got all the kids (even the peaceful girls) to join into a less physically violent energy release. It seemed to work for awhile, but then K (who had missed her nap due to the ongoing shenanigans) picked that moment to have a breakdown about some perceived slight.

In the end we stuck Toy Story into the DVD player & got the kids calmed down a little bit just in time for all the Moms to come & get their offspring.

I have to say I think we all had a pretty good time. When I asked C if he finally had enough Legos between everything he got for Christmas & now his birthday he shot me a pitying look and said " Mom, you can never have too many Legos".

We'll see about that. I'll agree until I start stepping on them around the house. So far he's been really good about that though. Hopefully that will continue.

I know one thing for certain though...next year's party will definitely NOT be here at the House of Crackers.