Life is Short. Play More.

We celebrated SIX and NINE today at a joint video game themed birthday party! Under the watchful eye of John, I created these x-box meets camo invitations for the event.You can find them in my etsy store as both a digital download and a finished double sided invitation!

It’s hard to believe my baby is SIX…

…and my big kid is NINE!

We lucked out with a warm and sunny day and set up the Game Zone in the garage. It’s not beautiful, but it was practical for sixteen boys and provided easy access to the main event… the game truck!

I set up a large table at the back with “VIP Access Passes” (ie. name tags so the guys running the game truck could identify the kids) and “Game Over” favor boxes.

I had the large print made at Costco for next to nothing and mounted it on a piece of foam board from Dollar Tree.

The littles loved wearing the lanyards. I printed and laminated name tags, punched a hole in the top and used these cheap (but nice) lanyards from Amazon*. And, YES, I am aware that I spelled access wrong. Late night worker with too much on my plate…

I was really blanking on a good favor and, in a moment of weakness, decided to let the kids fill up little boxes with candy. I took the littles to Target earlier in the week and let them each pick out two favorite candies to use. A few notes on that bright idea… 1) The mini milk carton boxes were from Michael’s and, as darling as they are, they were the devil to assemble. 2) At the last minute, I decided to use plastic dollar bin hot dog containers for the candy rather than my glass cereal jars… which brings me to number 3) This was complete and utter chaos. Some of John’s friends were literally dumping baskets of candy into their boxes. It was nuts. I was SO glad the boxes were only 3” tall, that I used those ugly plastic bins, and that I had stashed half of the candy under the table (otherwise Whit’s group wouldn’t have had a SINGLE piece). LOL. So, let me go ahead and say that I would never recommend this as a favor.

Moving right along… recall how I mentioned that I misspelled a word and couldn’t come up with a favor… here’s another example of my frazzledness of trying to pull together a party after a nine-day trip. I was literally walking upstairs on Wednesday to see if they had clean red polo shirts when Tricia at HKL Designs texted me to say that my shirts would be ready to pick up Saturday. I totally forgot that I had asked her to make them to match the invites. HA! She did a fantastic job on these, as usual!

With the combined party, I set up a separate “reserved” table for each group. I rented the tables and chairs because I had no way to seat this many!

Each little had their own cake. Whit wanted vanilla with chocolate fudge icing, while John requested chocolate with chocolate fudge icing. I made the cake toppers SO easily using this darling x-box controller mold from Amazon*, white chocolate candy melts and four m&m’s. If you’re wondering, it will take about 3/4 of a bag to make one controller. After you fill the mold, pop it in the fridge to harden. It will literally fall out of the mold. Dip the bottom of each m&m in some of the remaining chocolate and it will stick right on to the controller. Easy, cute and worth loads of hugs and smiles from your littles :-)

We drew tic-tac-toe boards on the paper table runners and all of them were completed!

I started the party at 12:30 and did pizza (paid for with some of those discount gift cards Honey was addicted to buying last month…the kids are lucky they didn’t get Boston Market LOL) and cake first (I was checking my list at Publix on Monday and just happened to be standing next to the bakery. When the employee asked if I needed to order a cake, I said no…wait, YES…I actually need two. LOL. Saved me a trip across town to our usual bakery and was just fine for the kids).

Now, as for the main event, I have to thank the bestie that GAVE us the party!!!!!!!!!!!!! With our Disney trip over Thanksgiving, we decided early in the year that we wouldn’t do parties, but would just let each of them have a friend spend the night. Well, my dear friend won the party in a raffle and had no use for it so she passed it along to us. Where it was MUCH loved!!!!!!!!!! The company was Games2U and I really want to say that they did a top notch job. They confirmed with me multiple times, called on their way, arrived at least 20 minutes EARLY, had a clean truck, a friendly crew and handled every aspect of the gaming. I requested no shooting games like Halo, Grand Theft, etc. and they were happy to manage that when a few kids pushed for them :-) The truck holds 12 kids inside and 8 outside. It would highly recommend them!

It was a FUN celebration for everyone!! I’m so glad we knocked them both out in one fell swoop.

It’s rare, but I snagged a photo with Honey.

And, of course CeeCee…

Now, I’m about to park myself on the sofa. At least until tomorrow…
xoxo