da party

What do you get when you combine 18 kids, 22 adults, 5 pizzas and a cake? Zoo Boy's birthday party, of course! All thrown together in a converted antique New England tobacco barn. It was crazy! It was chaotic! It was fun!!

First the kids had a farm animal program in the barn with one of the park's educators. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go out to the barn with them, as I was busy setting up for the party, but from what the other adults tell me, it was a very nice program -- just the right amount of factual information combined with petting and feeding the resident farm animals. I hear that Zoo Boy was in his absolutely glory, getting to be the first to pet each animal, since it was his birthday. They certainly all came back in with great big grins!

So the pizzas were eaten, then everyone sang and Zoo Boy blew out his candles. (He helped me decorate the cake with his favorite Pokemon figures.) It was a great big space, so there was lots of running and playing and laughing (and occasionally a little crying as someone got run into). The kids all seemed to have an absolute blast.


My sister organized some party games -- here the kids play duck-duck-goose, which Zoo Boy says was his very favorite part of the party. She also ran a rollicking game of Red-light-Green-light, and Simon Says. My friend T designed a really cute Pin-the-tail-on-Pikachu game, which Zoo Boy absolutely loved! (I'll blog a photo of that with my weekly wrap-up, later today.)

I also set out a couple of self-directed crafts to give the kids some quieter options. Most of the older kids took advantage of them (the younger ones were just too busy running around to pay them much heed). Here, a couple of my guys' cousins work on creating a piece of art with stamps and markers.



The Map Man joins J in doing some origami. J really loves paper-folding crafts and came running when he saw what I was setting out.

All in all, the party was a success. And I was exhausted. Next year I'm going to insist on separate celebrations with family and friends, but for a really large group, this worked out just fine.