Party Time!

Before I even start this post, I want to say that my pictures turned out AWFUL. I don't know what is wrong with my camera, but lately whenever there is the slightest movement in the picture, everything blurs. I think I've solved the problem by completely resetting the camera to its factory settings, but I don't know. It's frustrating!

Anyway, rant over! On Saturday, we headed to the bowling alley to celebrate Damien's 6th birthday, which isn't technically till the 31st. The bowling alley had a great party package which included $5 arcade cards for 8 kids plus 500 extra tickets for the birthday boy, 2 large pizzas and unlimited soda, and 2 bowling lanes for 2 hours. Let me just say right now that it was pretty much the best birthday party we've ever had in our family. It was super easy in terms of planning (literally I made a phone call. Done) and the kids had a blast.

We went with a Spiderman theme because, duh...Spiderman is awesome!

You can kind of see the Spiderman treat bags behind the cake. We also sent out Spiderman invitations and the birthday boy wore a Spiderman badge identifying him as the VIP.

We were expecting 8 kids at the party, including Damien and Julia, their 8-year old aunt Mikallie and 5 kids he invited from his class, plus our best friends Chris, Peter and Chrissy. I had thought that was a decent, small-ish party. At the last minute, we found out that Mikallie wasn't going to be able to come and 2 of the classmates didn't show up, so we had 5 kids. As it turns out, that was PERFECT. It was utter chaos. There were probably 8-9 other parties there at the same time, so it was wall to wall kids, especially in the arcade. Trying to keep track of 5 kids was just enough for me, thank you very much! Also, I think with more kids, we would have had to order more food because 2 large pizzas disappeared very quickly. So quickly that a certain mom who was supervising kids in the arcade didn't even get some! So in the end, I think it worked out perfectly.

This is before the storm hit. We got there early so we'd be there before the other kids and it was calm. This lasted for about 10 minutes, then the place exploded with kids.

Getting ready to open gifts.

Damien got a sword and shield, plus another double-sided sword that turns into two individual swords. Many sword fights have ensued in my livingroom since Saturday...

The kids started out using this ramp thingy to roll the ball down the alley, but it didn't take long for them to realize that chucking it down the lane as hard as they could was way more fun.  

After the party, we went out for dinner with our friends, which was great. I was exhausted by the time we got home, but it was that wonderful kind of exhaustion you get after a day filled with joy, love and happiness.