10th Birthday Party

 Cody and Jaden invited a group of 9 school friends over to celebrate their birthday. We had a wonderful time with these kids! We started by playing Capture the Flag at our neighborhood playground. Cody and Jaden were team captains for the two teams.

Adley came along too and found a perfect spot to watch all the action. :)

This group of kids is quite competitive and very athletic, so the teams found each other's flags fairly quickly but had a hard time bringing the flags home. The two games we played sat at a stalemate for a while. The kids enjoyed themselves but were worn out by the end!

Everyone was ready to cool off once we arrived back home, so we jumped right into the water games. No teams for the first one-- just a free-for-all water war! We had a huge stash of water guns and squirters that the kids could switch off between. They all loved this!

Jason set up tables that the kids could use as hideouts/forts, but the kids weren't shy about getting soaked!

Our next activity involved teamwork. Two groups of kids worked together to build a cup tower. Their goal was to build it as strong as possible so that it could withstand a barrage of water.

Once their cup fortresses were complete, the kids lined up at the center line and waited for the countdown. When Jason called out, "Go!" the teams raced to squirt each other's cups off the table.

After this activity, everyone dried off and changed so we could play the Game of Things inside. We heard some pretty creative entries during this game and lots of boy humor. 😏

Then, it was time for FOOD! Grandpa and Grandma helpfully delivered food from Pizza Hut for the kids' enjoyment.

The boys' birthday cake requests were a little non-traditional-- scotcheroos for Cody and ice cream cake for Jaden.

The boys' friends were very generous with their presents. Jaden and Cody were spoiled with gifts of Pokemon cards, cash, sports equipment, and more.

Our boys are blessed with some awesome friends. We enjoyed entertaining them. They played hard and had a great time!