Last year we bribed Jake not to have a birthday party so this year I thought we would throw a big bash for him at the house. He decided to invite three friends from his first grade class and then we invited all of our neighborhood friends and their parents. We weren't sure how many people would show up but I was prepared for about 40. Jake wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja party and everyone knows that those guys eat pizza when they're not fighting bad guys and saying "kawabunga". So, turns out, pizza for 40 people costs around $85. That's if you get the good stuff from Papa John's and if the pizza person working the phones when you call grossly overestimates how much pizza 40 people will eat. We ended up with a good 4 or 5 pizzas too many.
Normally, I make the kids birthday cakes because I'm just too cheap to spend $30 on a cake. Jake really wanted a Ninja Turtle cake with a little ninja turtle figure on top. I almost ordered one from the grocery store just to save myself the stress of making one but after hearing that we were going to spend $85 on pizza I decided to give baking one a shot. Mike told me to just make a round cake and decorate it like a turtle shell. It really did not turn out very well. It pretty much looked like the Spider Man cake I made him last year only green. Poor little Jake-I could tell he was kind of disappointed. But he put on a brave face and told me he liked it anyway. See? That's the difference between a 7 year old boy and a 3 year old boy. Mama messed up your cake? That's ok, it's not worth throwing a fit over.
My parents and sister and nephew and 35 of our closest friends all piled into the house for a couple hours for the party. To say it was mass chaos would be putting it mildly. I have never been in such a loud house before. Those little kids had the best time. They ran. They yelled. They ninjaed. They partied like it was 1999. Most of the parents sat around looking at each other shell shocked for 2 hours. As one of my friends said it is nice knowing your 7 year old boy is not the only wild, loud out of control kid in town. Turns out that behavior is just normal. So when I heard one of my friends say "um, Kim? Jake is running around outside with his pants and underwear down chasing Sydney (the only girl he invited) around with his business hanging out" I didn't panic. I just assume that's what all 7 year old boys think of as appropriate behavior. On second thought, maybe 7 year old boys don't have all their "stuff" worked out after all.
Mike set up an obstacle course in our backyard for the kids to run around in. Let's not talk about the 5 gallon size orange Home Depot bucket full of liquid dog poo that he poured in the grass right in front of our slide before hand to dispose of it. Let's not talk about that at all. Let's just talk about how much fun the kids had playing Ninja turtle goes through an obstacle course and leave it at that. Here is a picture.
My dad took pictures of the party for me so I don't have any to show you. I will tell you that by the time Jake got around to opening up his gifts I thought his head might actually explode from excitement. And when I saw the amount of gifts he was getting I realized that we had really over invited for this party. Next year, I'm thinking two or three friends can come over for some cake and ice cream and then maybe I'll take them to the park to play or something. Maybe we'll even buy them some pizza.
