What?! Aiden is 7? I know – how did I let this happen? The biggest question is how did I get hooked into throwing a party? I had told the boys no big parties this year. For his 5th birthday, Brady and 2 of his buddies had a morning out at Chuck E Cheese. To celebrate turning 8, Brian took Logan and his friend Will to a Chicago Fire soccer game in March. Aiden said he wanted a sleep over with 2 of his kindergarten friends. However, his birthday was the night before Brian and I left for a week-long adult vacation with our friends so a sleep over didn’t sound so great (that was the excuse I used anyway). I told him he could have 3 friends over for a playdate. One of those friends happens to have 2 brothers roughly Logan and Brady’s ages so they asked if they could come as well…of course we wanted to invite cousin Jack…so it ended up as a 9-boy party. So there it was…9 boys coming over. Clearly activities are needed when that many small men invade a home (read: ways to not have your house completely destroyed). Aiden wanted a Mine Craft theme. I did my best to keep it under control: no invites, no major decorating, only 1 box of cake mix needed…

But then… I thought it would be fun to have the boys all get their own bows and arrows like the ones Brian recently made for Logan, Aiden and Brady out of PVC pipe. Brian was a doll as always and was totally willing to help. I then spent about 2 days figuring out actual Mine Craft “recipes” of elements and converted those to candy and other things like feathers, string and rocks. I hid all of the stuff around the house and had the boys craft everything from their lunch (make your own pita pizzas) to cake and then finally, bows and arrows. Like Brian always says, I make my own trouble!

 

My new go-to decorations, balloons on strings.

goody bags were “chests” for all the stuff they “mined”  

The AWESOME bows and arrows…as you can see from the Mine Craft sign of…bow and arrow! Arrows are made from wooden dowels and pieces of pool noodle.

Boys ready for fun! Moms driving away hastily!

No Creepers!!

How do you start a Mine Craft party… ???

by playing Mine Craft!!!

Logan and Austin ran my “crafting table”

 

for some unknown reason, the boys all beat the crud out of their pitas before we dressed them for baking (Brian says this sort of behavior is attributed to some sort of “boy chip” hard-wired into the brains of the male species. I apparently only have the “excessive shoe-buying chip”)

Bow and arrow time!!

 

Yeah Presents! Aiden got mostly Target gift cards which he used to purchase a brand new 20” blue and green AWESOME bike! He also got a baby beta fish from his favorite babysitter Peyton and a fishing pole (which he’s used at least 6 times already) from Memaw and Grandpa.