Making A Life

This year when I was talking about birthday plans with my oldest, we gave him the option of having a party or going skiing. He picked skiing, which is fantastic. We were more than happy to try something new with the kids and especially because he wanted to do it so badly. Unfortunately, he got sick as soon as we got there, and missed going skiing.

I also know that this time in our lives is fleeting. Birthdays are a reminder that our kids (and all of us) are getting older by the second, and I just couldn’t skip the party. I can see that there is a limited number of birthday parties left before the kids are too cool to have their parents involved in birthday celebrations so while I can I am going to celebrate.

Surprisingly we managed to keep the event a secret until the morning of the party. I think that it actually worked quite well. As the parents of the birthday boy we weren’t asked how many more sleeps, minutes or seconds until the party. Most of the guests were not aware that they were coming to the party until the night before or the day of the party either, so it was a win-win for all of the adults involved.

The theme was Minecraft. I knew nothing about Minecraft but thanks to Pinterest I learned everything I needed to know to throw a Minecraft party. We made a portal, creeper and ghost balloons, TNT decorations, balloon spiders, a creeper shirt for the birthday boy, a TNT pinata and a diamond sword cake.

We started the party off with Minecraft activities that I found on Pinterest, a dot to dot, a decode a word and decorating diamond swords . This kept the kids occupied while the other guests arrived. When everyone arrived, I broke them into teams and they did a scavenger hunt. I gave them a map of the house to find Minecraft objects that I hid inside and outside. After the scavenger hunt, we had a Minecraft themed snack, which included:

• Chicken – Chicken nuggets
• Potato – Tater tots
• Slime – Green grapes
• Carrots – Baby carrots
• Redstone – Doritos
• TNT – Red Licorice
• Snow – Marshmallows
• Sticks – Straight pretzels
• Melon – Watermelon
• Fish – Fishy crackers

After snack we had, the diamond sword cake, which was made from two sheet cakes (chocolate and lemon), decorated with chocolate, and vanilla frosting (coloured green and blue).

After cake, we opened presents. My kids have so many toys so I suggested that in lieu of gifts we collect donations for the Brain Tumour Foundation walk in May. He raised $62.00 and got some new toys so it was another win-win. After presents, we headed outside to smash a piñata. Inside the piñata were goody bags for the kids. After the piñata, the guests went home and I broke out the wine. It was a successful easy at home party, which the kids loved.