Jacob's 11th Birthday

We are off to Temple today to celebrate Jacob's 11th birthday.  How is it that these kids keep getting so old when my age is not changing?  Don't I wish.  I feel the age creeping in each and every day but am trying so hard to ignore it.

Jen is doing a Minecraft birthday and when we arrive it is time to get to work as the decorations are still not ready.  Mister and Louis finish making the blocks for the tree and build it as I start working on a stencil for painting shirts with the "creeper".  It takes me several tries but the quilter in me finally rose to the surface and accomplished the task.  (I had help, lol.)

We have let the girls go and they are thrilled to have people to play with.  Score!  Add balloons to the mix and we are set.  Jacob is such a sweetheart and plays with them while we work.  Time flies and soon friends are starting to arrive for the party.  Yay!  Here we go.

Doesn't it all look fantastic?  And this is only the table -- the rest of the house looks amazing as well.

The entire party is based on the game and so the kids are playing a real life version of it.  The first thing they have to do is get wood and that requires punching a tree.  (Yep the tree Mister and Louis built).

With their wood (popsicle stick), they formed a pick so that they could get the next item which is string.


Now for the second step.

 The string was found in the balloon spider on the wall and they had to use the pick to pop the balloons to find it.  Photo ops first though.

It was fun to watch as they frantically popped the balloons on their search.  By the time they had all located their two pieces of string, only a few remained.

Once the boys bigger kids moved away, Grandpa let Elena finish the job.

For the life of me -- I cannot remember what came next in the game or what the heck the string was for.  The perils of old age.

Time for presents:

And cake - the big cake in the center was just for decorations, so the candles were all put in a cupcake.  Too funny.

Time to eat:

And then to play.  We had to laugh so hard at how Elena took over with the big kids and ruled the trampoline.  She was in heaven.

The kids all took turns making their creeper shirts with the stencil I had put together.  When the party was winding down -- Miss Elena had a turn making one as well. I'm pretty sure she has no idea what it is all about, but she now owns a creeper shirt.

It has been such a fun day but we need to get these two little ones back home before it gets too late.  Pretty sure they are both going to sleep all the way home.  Happy birthday Jacob and thank you for letting us be a part of it.