Andrew's birthday party

When I asked Andrew about what he wanted to do for his birthday he said have a party!! After all of the craziness of the last month I tried to get him to agree to take a couple of friends to the movies instead of a party, but that was a no go. So then it was on to party theme selection. He narrowed it down to either Indiana Jones or Ninjago. He as never seen an Indiana Jones movie, so I'm not sure how he came up with that one. I don't know anything about Ninjago, but good news - Danny does! Danny was soon appointed head party planner of a Ninjago party for 7 year olds. By the way, Ninjago is/are ninja themed legos. Here is a picture of some Ninjago characters.

Danny thought it would be fun to do ninja training with the boys. While the boys were arriving Danny taught them how to fold ninja stars out of origami paper. Even though it took longer than we had planned, all of the boys were able to pick their own colors and make a ninja star. Here are some examples of the stars:

I wish I had gotten some pictures of them folding the stars because they were trying so hard to do it right, but it was hard because I was trying to hold Grant and take pictures at the same time. We gave all of the boys their own Ninjago headband.

We go them all in the picture except for one boy. They could hardly stand still long enough to take a picture because they wanted to start the training.

Our first activity was throwing accuracy. We had three buckets that they had to try to shoot their newly created ninja stars into. It was harder than they thought it would be.

Then they did a bit of weapons training with the nerf bow and arrow. They tried to knock over plastic bottles that were covered with pictures of the "bad guys".

Next up was sword training and team work. They had to bounce a balloon on their sword while walking across the grass. It was a relay race that was made more difficult than we planned because of the wind.

The next activity focused on balance while under pressure. They had to walk across a balance beam with enemies all around.

The kids not on the balance beam were the enemies. Danny taught them how to make a blow dart weapon using a straw and Q-tips. The boys loved this. They could have done this for hours.

I decided to make a ninja star cake because it seemed like the easiest shape that somehow related to the party. The icing was supposed to be red and black, but no matter how much food coloring I put in, it was still kind of pink and grey. Andrew didn't seem to care. In hindsight I should have done easier colors like green, yellow or blue.

Andrew blowing out the candles on his cake. The boys were super excited to pick a color of cake that they wanted.

We ran out of time this year with the party only being an hour and a half. We had several more games that we wanted to play. Danny did a great job coming up with ideas and even doing a lot of the shopping. I wonder if he has any good ideas for a party for a one year old boy!