Ben's Birthday Party

For his 10th birthday, Ben wanted to have a monkey party.  

Fortunately, the Cake Boss lives at our house and she created this awesome monkey cake!

The Cake Boss and her cake!

She is also an amazing when it comes to decorating and coordinating games. She recruited her friend Kalyn to help and I got to sit back and watch!

Ben invited six friends.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day and they were able to be outside during the entire party, from 3:00 to 7:00.  Whew!  I don't think my house would have survived if they'd been inside.  Especially since the first thing they did was play "Hunger Games."  They've created their own version, even though Ben has never read the books or seen the movie.  They start out with a huge pile of "weapons" (sticks) in a "cornucopia" (tee-pee shaped pile) and on the count of three, dash forward to grab their desired weapon.  Then they sprint towards the woods and commence "sword fighting." When they lose their three "hearts" (you lose a heart by being poked with a stick), they're "dead" and the last person standing is the winner.  At least, I think those are the rules.  They played two rounds, which lasted about an hour.

Aidan sneak attacks Wyatt, causing him to lose a heart.  

Then it was time for the games that Jillian and I had planned.  We thought of several "Minute-to-Win-it" type games.  First was "Suck it Up" where they had to suck through a straw to see how many M&Ms they could transfer from a cup onto the plate in one minute.  They thought this was pretty fun and wanted to do it a few times each.

Next was "Mamba Tower," where they had to see who could stack the most Mambas in one minute. The wrappers on those little candies are kind of slippery, so it was quite challenging!

This one is called "Junk in the Trunk". It's hard to see exactly what they're doing, but they have a kleenex box full of ping-pong balls tied around their waist and have to jump up and down to shake them all out.  It took way less than one minute, more like 15 seconds.  I thought it would be much harder.

Another ping-pong game: "Ping Pong Toss". This one was much more difficult. They had to toss the balls into the box on their partner's head. They did it a few times and got quite good at it.

The last game, "Elephant March" was the favorite!  Who wouldn't love having panty-hose stuck on their head with a tennis ball at the bottom, trying to knock over water bottles?  They wanted to do this over and over again, and then asked if they could take the panty-hose home. 

They kept their new "hats" on all evening.  It was hilarious to watch them jump on the trampoline!

Getting back to the monkey theme, we played a monkey trivia game and had a monkey pinata. (Notice he's still wearing the panty-hose!) Monkey trivia consisted of questions like:  What is the rarest type of monkey?  a. the yellow spotted capuchin, b. the pink tiger lemur, or c. the golden lion tamarin or What is the loudest type of monkey?  a. the screamer monkey, b. the howler monkey, or c. the yeller monkey.  Surprisingly, these kids know a lot about monkeys!  

Poor monkey!  I felt a little bad when they boys were bashing on it.  

Sometime in between all these games, they ate pizza. It was kind of an "on the go" dinner.  They snatched pieces while playing a third round of "Hunger Games" and using their stocking hats to play tether ball, using each other as the pole. 

  Ben singing, "Happy Birthday to ME!" 

After the pinata, we came inside for a few minutes to eat cake and open presents. Some of the boys didn't want to come inside, they were having so much fun outside.  I think the party was a huge success.  The weather was perfect, they got to run around in the woods with sticks, play crazy games, eat pizza, candy, and cake, and go home with panty hose on their head, so what's not to love?!