Olympics birthday party

Josh had a party last Saturday. (Not nearly as many photos as I'd like...I sort of forgot I had a camera while the festivities were underway.) Weeks ago, he said he'd like to have a Kirby party. Coincidentally at that time his very favorite video game was Kirby Super Star Ultra. I was perplexed at how to create such a party, but planned to give it a shot. Later he changed his mind and said he'd like an Olympics party. Coincidentally, he'd recently turned his favor to Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games. Sweet. A 6-year-old birthday party like that practically plans itself! Later still, his screen-time and focus returned to Kirby and he reported that he'd like a Kirby party after all. Dang. I'll admit it: I sweet talked him into sticking with the Olympics idea. I pointed out the pros of such a cool party and he was easy to persuade.

Originally I thought we'd work out some way to adapt the winter events to be done without the snow and ice. (Bobsled = Sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag?) But the weather was nice and the summer events seemed much easier to manage so we went with that.

The kids arrived and were invited to make up the name of the country they'd be representing and create a flag for their country with construction paper, scissors, glue and markers. Then we headed outside for the events: 100 yard dash, standing long jump, discus (with the huge foam frisbee), shot put (tossing a bean bag into the olympic rings drawn on the sidewalk with chalk), soccer (maneuvering through some cones to score a goal), and then wrapping up with a relay race (putting on a life vest, goggles and a swim cap, running to a tree and back then handing the stuff off to the next teammate). It went well. I was a bit worried about how the gaggle of boys would do with all of the waiting time that came with taking turns at many of the events. Luckily I had an ace up my sleeve that I did not even know about--Emma. Emma and Ben were my official party-helpers, dressed in track pants and white t-shirts and equipped with whistles. I had planned to do the main bit of directing and having them help out with crowd control. As it turned out, I simply had to tell Emma which event was next and she took care of everything. "Tweet! Okay! Everyone come line up right here for the long jump. Okay, spread out here, now when I blow the whistle you each take turns jumping as far as you can like this? See? Okay, ready? Tweet! ... Tweet! ... Tweet!..." She was awesome, she kept perfect control of the crowd the entire time.

We finished up with gifts and cake in ice cream cones topped with yellow frosting. Get it?

USA! USA! USA!