The Boys Turned 8!

The birthday fun started on the 25th, when I brought treats in for their classes at school.  Hyrum had made snicker doodle cookies the night before and I was just going to bring those in but I thought I needed to make them a little more exciting.  I stuck toothpicks into each cookie and then put curly Cheetos on the toothpicks.  The cookies looked pretty funky and crazy when I was finished but I wasn't so sure the kids would go for the combination: nacho cheese and cinnamon cookie.  Turns out they all loved them.

Emerson in his classroom with the tower of crazy cookies behind him.

Townsend in his class enjoying his funky treat.

After the school snack was out of the way it was on to the main event.  I spent the next 2 days getting things ready for their birthday party.  This year they wanted to invite 45 friends and I knew I couldn't even host half that many kids in my house so Hyrum and I finally let them have a party at Megaplay.  We have hesitated in the past doing a party at Megaplay because it is usually a mad house with about 200 kids running around the giant indoor play area.  But, with all the kids coming we decided we had no other choice.  It turns out that it's pretty nice to have a bunch of kids able to entertain themselves, instead of trying to come up with all the activities myself.  Also, not having to clean up after the party is also a great bonus.

The boys wanted a "science" theme for their party, so we made them a volcano cake.

Cael Platt helped me mix the "toxic" punch, complete with green glow sticks.

There were about 23 kids that ended up coming.  We took up more than 3 tables at Megaplay!  I had put together a few "science" games for the kids.  Here they are trying to guess what the magnified object in the picture is.

Here the kids are doing a science experiment.  You pour a layer of milk onto a plate then have the kids put a few drops of food coloring in the middle.  They then dip a Q-tip into soap and then dip that Q-tip into the food coloring.  The kids were pretty excited about the designs that appeared on their plates.

Here is our volcano cake...on fire!

At the end of the day I think the boys had a great party with all their friends:)

Some of the other things we did:  We took the kids outside and put Mentos into a 2 liter bottle of diet Coke to make a foamy fountain.  We played "Will It Float?" where I had 10 objects and a clear bucket of water and they had to guess whether or not the objects would float.  I had 4 different bowls with tic-tacs and they had to guess the flavor.  I had a few other ideas that used dry ice but it turns out it's pretty hard to get dry ice here in Germany.

I can't believe my boys are 8 years old.  They are really growing up.  Don't get me wrong, they are still completely crazy at times but I do see glimpses of maturity now and again.  I love these two guys and I'm so proud of them when I see them being kind to their little brother, or when they get their homework done all by themselves.  Happy Birthday Townsend and Emerson, I'm glad you had a fun day!