Birthday Boy

Nolan's 5th birthday party went off without a hitch. I was so worried about not having organized games and a lot of cute decorations. As it turns out, small boys don't really care for decorations or games. They were far more interested in running around in the yard.

I had punching balloons out for the kids to play with when they arrived. The kids seemed to like that a lot. Most of the balloons popped on the dry grass within an hour or so, but that was fine as they had moved on to other activities by then.

I also had silly string for a game of Spiderman tag. This was a BIG hit for the boys.

I made "superhero swords" out of pool noodles. This turned out to be a wonderful idea, as the boys spent a great deal of time chasing each other while waving their foam swords.

I did throw a couple of games together. Nothing really themed or overly exciting, but at least the kids had fun. The first game involved tying a balloon around each child's ankle. The kids tried to step on each other's balloons - the last child with an inflated balloon was the winner. The boys loved this and immediately went to chase each other and step on their friend's balloons. The winner of the game had matching chromosomes and wisely went off to the side to avoid the melee of boys. She giggled as she collected her prize.

The next game was a water balloon toss. Except I couldn't find the water balloons and Dennis couldn't find any at the store. We used real balloons instead - and it turns out that real balloons will never, ever break.

We changed the rule to state that the winner would be the first pair to BREAK a balloon. We finally managed to accomplish that task!

Nolan was excited to have his cake, and we sang him the birthday song and he blew out his candle.

He opened his gifts and loved all of his presents. He loves pretend play (and superheroes) and he received several toys that really made his day.

Even though I didn't have much time to prepare for his birthday party and didn't have all the really cute activities I saw on Pinterest, it didn't really matter. The kids all had a good time, we had cake, and Nolan had his friends around to celebrate his special day. It was a very Happy Birthday!