Orange You Glad You're Here? (a birthday)

Yes, we still do birthday parties in our house.  In fact, we tend to go all out for parties at our house.  My favorite by far was William's 9th Birthday where we hosted a SPY party.  It was so cool....I made the invitations in reverse so parents had to read it in front of a mirror. hehehe... There were lots of mustaches involved with that party!  We've done maybe one for each of them somewhere other than our own home, but I find when I ask the kiddos, they prefer the ones at home.  Hey, I love the chance to have guests....small and large!

William turned 12 this year.  Wow....I know.  Seems like yesterday he arrived in the middle of an ice storm.  We were afraid we'd not make it to the hospital!  In Georgia the world shuts down in ice and snow ya know.  Here he is though, age 12.  And he wanted a sleep over.  Cool.  So we invited 5 boys plus him.  Woohooo!!  This was the yummy food buffet table:

The theme for the party.....well at 12 you are a little over Bob the Builder and Lego parties.  So we went with a color scheme.  Guess which color?  Orange you glad you stopped by today to see all this?  Hahaha... (on a side note, I CAN NOT get a decent photo in this part of the house.  Irritates the heck out of me.  These photos I was so excited about sharing and dang if they aren't all kind of icky.....)

Since we went with an orange color scheme we scoured the store for orangey treats...the giant gum ball machine balls with movie treats in them were a HUGE hit.  Seriously 12 year old boys still love fun stuff like giant gum ball machine balls!

I put silly orange jokes all over the food table for fun.  William thought that was a little corny, but hey, I was on a role with the decorations!

I'd seen the Mason jar glasses all over the Internet and decided it was a fabulous idea!  I mean, who hands a 12 year old a sippy cup?  In our new house, we don't allow drinks on the new carpet....but at a sleepover you kind of have to break the rules.  So this was the solution.  And can I just tell you, the boys had a fit over them!  "These are so cool Mrs. Jenni!!  Can we keep them?"  My friend Amber used her magic machine to cut the vinyl letters for them.   I wrapped the jars with layers of paper and filled them with orange soda and ginger ale ice cubes!!  Yummy.

So what do you do with 6/12 year old boys?  Well, first fed them hot wings (William's choice...ironic that they too are orange), hot chicken dip and queso dip.  Then you send them outside with flashlights and fabric napkins for capture the flag in the dark.  You are very thankful that A.  it's not 20' outside and B.  it's not raining.  Because outside running around is a wonderful idea for 6/12 year old athletic boys!!  Then at 10:30 PM you surprise the boys and tell them to get their shoes on because........we are going BOWLING!!  Yep, Billy and I loaded the gang up and went bowling until midnight.  We are cool parents, right?? (or crazy...not sure on that one yet.)

Once we got home all the boys grabbed their giant balls full of yumminess, their sippy cup...I mean mason jars, and all the other stuff from the buffet and headed up to the movie room.   We'd rented Transformers for them to watch.   By 2am...it was quiet. (except for Lily and Billy's snoring)  I decided it was finally safe for me to fall asleep as well.  You see, one particular friend, whom we've known since inutero was threatening pranks.  And well, pranks and I do not like each other very much.  So I had to BE sure he'd indeed fallen asleep prior to pranking.

So, from what I hear from Mommies and boys....a very good time was had by all.  I never heard fussing, whining or fighting.  Which was cool.  We have Mailey's sleepover tomorrow night....which I am sure there will be a little more drama.  They are girls (8/10 year old girls).  So wish me loads of luck and patience.

Oh...and in case you were wondering, yes I took a 2 hour nap Sunday afternoon.  haha...