If asked, my husband would say that I totally over-do birthdays. Perhaps, I do. Well, he can’t accuse me of that this time. Makai’s birthday is at the end of July, but this year his cousin (also his best friend) was going to be at an out of state baseball tournament for a week and then summer camp for a week during the last two weeks of July. He really didn’t want to have his birthday party without his best friend/cousin, so we had it early. It happened to coincide with his best friend/cousin’s birthday (they are 12 days apart) too, so my sister and I did a joint birthday party. We came up with a great (and fairly inexpensive) party idea that didn’t require either of us to offer up our house to the sacrifice of 16- 9 year old boys. Genius right?

I must admit that this party took me by surprise. It didn’t feel real because I wasn’t running all over trying to get decorations, food, party favors (Julie and I did this together and it was EASY), cleaning house and preparing for kids to trash my perfectly clean house (why do I do that to myself. I should just clean after instead of before).

We decided to go to the movies. There is a “dollar” movie theater right by our house that has cheap movies and concessions. They also have…….GROUP RATES and they allowed us to use their party room for free. We didn’t have a private showing of the movie, but it wasn’t too crowded!

We got pizza from Black Jack (which is in the same strip mall as the movie theater) and then made cupcakes (in my case cupcake sized rice krispie treats). We each allowed the boys to invite 8 friends and siblings. It made for a big party (especially because all the kids- except one- showed up!).

Of course, we planned it for Friday, July 20th. Great idea right? Except a LUNATIC decided to shoot up a showing of Batman at a movie theater on the other side of town the night before. We made sure none of the kids got wind of the news so they wouldn’t freak out. What a world we live in!

There were a few other snags (small) along the way, but for the most part, it was AWESOME!

Timeline (I am telling you this so that you can see that it was a crazy fast party)

12:15- show up at the theater so that we can get into the party room early to set up before the kids got there.
12:25- watch the employees chat while we are waiting outside to get in to set up for the party (I talked to them the day before to make sure we were set)
12:30- all of the kids show up (15 guests, two birthday boys, 4 siblings, 4 parents, 1 aunt, 2 grandmas and a grandpa- all waiting outside of the LOCKED doors. For those of you who have girls, you would be in cardiac arrest seeing all the boys running around!
12:35- I start furiously knocking on the door and a guy finally (hesitantly) lets us in.
12:36- pizza is served to 28 people.
12:50- Happy Birthday song and cake ceremony for each boy
12:52- cake is served.
12:59- hurry up and finishing eating so that 2 boys can open presents
1:00- 15 birthday presents are furiously unwrapped while the parents desperately try to keep it all straight and write down the gifts for thank you cards (still waiting to be finished).
1:12 clean up and head downstairs so all kids can go to the bathroom before the movie
1:15 all kids grab a small popcorn and small drink (that the movie theater had all ready for the kids)
1:30 “Pirates- band of misfits” begins. Parents relax while kids enjoy a movie.
Silencing 30 people for the rest of the hour and a half birthday party…..PRICELESS! Julie and I looked at each other during the movie and high fived! We had a birthday party with 18 boys and they were all quiet. Any other party would have been insane. In fact, the first 45 minutes of the party were INSANE. Hence the reason I only took 55 pictures of a joint birthday party. Usually I take about 300! Oh well, the kids had a blast, it was relatively inexpensive, my house was spared and now my husband has no room to say that I over did it (until next month when Tanner has his birthday party).

Here are the brief highlights!