The Greatest Robot Birthday Ever

This weekend was truly an amazing weekend. As one would expect when two fabulous people are celebrating their birthdays ... and a holiday caps it off. While I hope that we don't have to share our birthday weekend too often with Easter, this year, it really was the icing on the cake.

But now, let's get to the point of this day's rambling: the birthday party for K. While I don't think Martha Stewart has much to fear, I think I pulled off a pretty good and crafty party ... I also learned a whole lot about hosting a kid's birthday party and will pass along what I learned.

First, let's get to the party, then the lessons:

Setting up the stage. With the party being themed robots, the first charge was creating robot decorations. And I must give all my credit to two great blogs I happened upon: http://www.wendolonia.com/ and http://www.hwtm.com/. Both provided me oodles of inspiration, and templates to use for everything.

Below are the invitations that we sent to his six friends. (yes, I abided by the rule to invite the number of kids that matched his age ... a really smart rule ... which I'll elaborate on in just a bit.)

Then, we had to create some wall decor:

Now, I painstakingly made this robot free-hand by looking at a robot that was on some of the templates. When D came down the day I made it, he was "surprised" by how good it was. I was slightly wounded by his surprise, but I know he meant it in the best way possible. D also got balloons the morning of the party (apparently, we couldn't order them in advance because there is a helium shortage, so we had to go the day we wanted them ... fortunately, the party store opened at 8 a.m.)

When the kids arrived, we played a game of "hot robot" which was like hot potato, but with an Ugly Doll, that kind of looked like a robot. After that, the pizza arrived (thank goodness, as punctual as one could ever hope! I mean, they were here the minute we asked them to be - it was amazing, and may have secured our loyalty.)

With the pizza, we cut up apple slices and caramel and gave the kids some liquid robot fuel to drink:

After the pizza, the kids crafted their own robots out of marshmallows and pretzel sticks. This was a winner of a game, it kept them entertained the longest ... and we put their creations in bags for them to bring home. Then K opened his gifts. This was when I realized were were about a half hour ahead of schedule. These kids were going through my activities too fast ... so I quickly ran to our office and pulled out board games. We played Candyland and Operation. Then it was time for cake:

I found the template for this cake on http://www.bettycrocker.com/, it was fairly easy to  make, and K helped me tint the frosting to the perfect shade of "silver." After cake, I looked at D in desperation, we still had more than an hour before their parents were going to arrive ... and I had one activity left.  We played "Robot Says" which is Simon Says, but you say robot. This was good until one kid wanted to play with the toys instead of the game. I had printed robot coloring sheets, so we had the kids color. In pure hopes that it would kill time. It only killed fifteen minutes. So then we did the worst thing I could imagine ... we put on a cartoon. It kept them quietly entertained for a half hour. Which gave me time to come up with something else to do ... I brought out the Lego's. So, after the cartoon, they built creations. (Now, of course, I forgot to add it was raining, otherwise, I assure you, we would have taken those kids outside!)

Then, when 2:30 came, we sent the happy little kids off  with fabulous favor bags:

Inside, there was a lot of delightful robot-themed goodies:

The Nuts & Bolts mix seems like a requisite item at robot-themed parties, so I put in pretzel sticks, chex mix, chocolate chex mix and silver sixlet chocolate candy. And then the children also were given a glow-stick whistle, a robot puzzle item, Iron Man pop rocks, a flashlight and Rock-em Sock-em robot rings. Frankly, it was a favor bag to defy all favor bags:

And then, after everyone left, I went for a good run to de-stress. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by time I tied my shoes, because even if it hadn't ... I would have still needed the run. So here are my top lessons:
1. Two hours is sufficient. I hosted the party from 11:30 to 2:30. We could have ended at 1:30, the last hour was torture.
2. Don't go it solo. The only reason the party was a success was because both D and I were there. We needed each other.
3. You learn a lot about your kids friends. Like now, we may sort of steer him towards playing with the boy that was so nice and focused at the party, so polite and thoughtful. We may try to steer him a little bit a way from the obnoxious kids.
4. Get all parents cell phone numbers. We didn't need them, but with the parents leaving their kids, you always want to be safe.
5. Pray that they don't all come. This one sounds horrible, but only three of the kids were able to  make it. D and I aren't sure if we could have handled all six kids. But, we also wonder if there had been more kids, would that have tamed the wild ones.
6. Hide your child's toys. Frankly, the kids just wanted to play with all of K's toys, because they were new to them. So, instead of wanting to do the organized activities, they wanted to be down in the family room, playing with his toys or playing on the keyboard.
7. Realize that they will do everything in about 1/5th of the time you think they will. (Which takes me back to lesson 1.)

At the end of the day, I am glad we did it. K had a fabulous birthday (that was topped off with him going to dinner with just me and D, while D's parents watched O.) And there's nothing like the smile and joy on your child's face to make you think all is right with the world.  Thank goodness we're still about three birthday's away from O having a party.