Olympic Party - Part 2

For the actual Olympic events during Jaden and Cody's party, we divided the kiddos into two groups by age. Since our number of guests was so large (18 kids total), we knew that the division was necessary so the kids wouldn't be waiting in line so long for their turn. Plus we figured the kids would compete in the events a little better if they were watching their own peers. Jason led the group outside (what a gracious husband to take the humidity!), and I led the indoor activities. I had the younger age group (4 and under) first. They were so cute sitting there listening to my directions! :)

Our first event was the long jump. The kids began in a stationary position at the edge of the carpet rather than taking a running start. We figured this might be a bit safer. It was pretty cute watching these kids and their jumping postures!

Next we went upstairs for the balance beam. As you can see, our tape-on-the-carpet wasn't an actual balance beam, but it worked just fine for our purposes. :) We asked the kids to first walk straight along the balance beam...

...and then they could choose their own method of walking across the beam on their second go-round.  Cody tried this funky sideways heel walking.

Ryan pulled out some backwards moonwalking of sorts...

and Jaden did a little sideways jump-along. I was impressed that none of these little ones copied each other's movements!

Even our youngest two competitors-- Isaiah and Nathan-- participated in this event. Uncle Jon helped Isaiah do a pretty fancy cartwheel,

and Nathan was our first athlete to carry a pot of food with him along the balance beam. Impressive. :)

Our third event was the basketball shot. I gave the kids roughly 15-20 seconds to shoot as many baskets into the hoop as they could. Cody and Jaden definitely had the homecourt advantage on this one.

Nathan and our little friend Andrew worked together to make some good dunks.

The last indoor event was rhythmic gymnastics (this was my favorite idea from my cousins' Olympic party). I gave each child the option of dancing along with a slow or fast song (all of them chose a fast song, not surprisingly) and the option of dancing alone or with a friend. The kids also received a star-shaped patriotic wand as an optional dancing prop. Cody and Jaden went first since they are quite familiar with making up impromptu dance routines.

Our little friend Holden pulled out some hilarious break dancing moves!

Ryan chose to dance with his cousins, and the three did a free-for-all runaround!

These younger kids all had some great moves! Little Joshua was pretty talented with his handstand-cartwheels. It was great watching the little ones!

After this event, Jason and I swapped groups, and the littles went outside. It had been POURING all afternoon (up to the point that our neighborhood entrance was flooded and we were worried our guests might not even be able to make it to our house!). Thankfully, by God's grace, the rain stopped about a half hour prior to the party, and we could set aside our plan B of having all the events be indoors. It was SO nice to be able to utilize the grass and the outdoors for all of these activities. First, the kids did a shotput-type tennis ball throw.

Then, Jason led them in a soccer goal-kick event.

Their postures as they kick just crack me up!

Our next event was a hurdle jump in the front yard. I had seen this pool-noodle hurdle idea on Pinterest but wasn't sure how well it would work. This event ended up being most of the kids' favorite, even if the hurdles fell apart!

Jason had a few of the dads demonstrate the hurdle event for the little guys. We love these dads! :)

When it was the kids' turn, Jason said some kids went around the hurdles entirely. Thankfully, we weren't keeping any kind of score, and this group was too young to care about the competition aspect anyway.

Ryan and Holden

Jaden jumping with Joshua

Cody and Luke (with daddy Paul)

Nathan and Isaiah were the funniest. Check out Nathan just plowing straight through all the hurdles, destruction in his path! :)

Well done, fellow Olympian!

Following the hurdles, the young ones came inside for some balloon volleyball, which basically just turned into crazy playtime with a balloon. 

Here are some photos of the older kiddos doing the same events. They displayed some pretty cute stances in these activities as well, so I couldn't leave this bunch out. First, the shotput event....

The soccer shoot-out event was next. As you can tell, the soccer goal was much farther away for these older guys.

Love this little graceful Ella!

Jason was a wonderful leader for all these outdoor activities. Hurdles was up next. The older bunch understood the concept of jumping OVER the hurdles much better. These kids jumped high!

The next event was an older-kid only event-- javelin throwing. Jason decided to skip it for the young bunch after even the older kids struggled to throw the javelin accurately. Again, we had some great dad demonstrators. 

The goal was to toss the javelin through the hoop, but it was a little challenging. Perhaps I should have added a few extra hoops to give a greater chance of success.

Most of the kids' throws looked something like this. :)

After that last outdoor event, the kids came inside with me for long jump....

balance beam walking...

(or army crawling)

and basketball shooting.

These kids were quite a bit sillier and crazier with the gymnastic dance routines, but they had a great time! 

After all the events were done, it was time for the closing ceremonies!

Olympic Party - Part 1

Jaden and Cody had been counting down to this day for weeks. When the hour of their birthday party finally arrived, these boys were quite happy! (I've already decided who my two favorite Olympic athletes of the summer will be, by the way!)

Before the big Olympic party started, we had to take a few birthday boy photos... 

When the guests arrived, we ushered them into our dining room to make two Olympic crafts-- a personalized flag and an Olympic torch.

Papa and Grammy guided all the kids through the craft-making process. They started by rolling a paper towel tube in aluminum foil for the torch.

Then, the kids dipped scraps of tissue paper in glue and stuck them at the top of the torch to look like flames.

It was an easy enough craft that the kids could just jump right in whenever they got to our house. 

The birthday boys willingly moved to a new table when our dining room got too cramped.

Aunt Kim worked with Cody and Jaden to make their flags. Each child wrote his or her name on the flag and then decorated the flag with crayons, stickers, or paper scraps.

This table got very full with 14 kids moving through the craft process!

As the kids finished their craft, we led them into the living room and gave them a small snack of trail mix and water. We figured that a little tide-me-over snack might be helpful with our later dinnertime. Plus, we knew the kids would be better behaved if they had a snack while they waited for others to finish the craft. It worked! Everyone sat nicely and fairly calmly. :)

As you can see, our age group of kiddos spanned across quite a few age groups (1 year old to 7 years old). When I was planning for this party, I realized that some of the kids (my boys included) probably had no idea what the Olympics even were! So, I assembled some pictures into a powerpoint and gave the kids a little Olympics 101. (What can I say? Once a teacher, always a teacher!)

The presentation was very brief but gave the kids a visual of various Olympic events, the parade of nations, the torch lighting, and the medal ceremonies. 

Then, we took a group picture of all our Olympic athletes with their name-flags. Believe it or not, this photo is actually missing 4 kids-- our two and under crew. We had a nice crowd!

Jason then assembled the kids into a line to prepare for our parade of nations.

The competitors marched into the house...

through the living room, behind the table, and into the kitchen-- all the while proudly waving their flags. The adults were scattered about the house, applauding enthusiastically. Of course, the Olympic Fanfare was playing in the background.

Eventually, Jason halted the athletes so that he could announce their names one by one. Many of the kids seemed a little bit shy about getting so much individual applause, but we could tell that they were quite proud too. :) 

The last part of the Opening Ceremonies was the torch lighting. The parents helped all the kids exchange their flags with their torches, and we were ready!

I had found a perfect video on youtube of the torch lighting from the 2014 Sochi Olympics. It was a short video with the perfect amount of anticipation time. We displayed this video on our TV and had the kids hold up their torches when the torch was lit. 

At the end, we led the kids in a chorus of, "Let the Games begin!!"

Birthday Morning

Jaden and Cody's 4th birthday gifts from Mommy and Daddy were new bikes-- their very first ones. Because the bikes were difficult to wrap, we just hid them in the boys' toy room. When Jaden and Cody woke up on their birthday morning, we gave them a few hints about where to look for their gift. For some unknown reason, both boys slowly crawled into the room after seeing the bikes...

They seemed more curious than anything, and each spent a while just inspecting their bikes.

Finally, they climbed on and experimented a bit. The bikes were Star Wars themed-- more because that was the kind that was on sale than because Cody and Jaden are fans. :) The boys did enjoy the light-up handle bar feature. Unfortunately, the morning was a bit rainy, so we had to wait until later to try out the bikes.

Jaden and Cody loved checking out the cake that magically appeared on the counter overnight. :)

When it was time for breakfast, the meal was served IN BED. I think this excited the boys even more than receiving the bikes!

Right before naptime, the rain finally let up for a brief time, so we were able to try out the boys' new wheels. Jaden and Cody use tricycles quite regularly, but they both get fairly lazy with their pedaling. When the going gets tough, they often resort to the "Flintstones-type" driving by ignoring the pedals completely and pushing forward with their feet on the ground. Pedaling a bike felt like a whole new story. Because they were higher off the ground, now they were forced to use the pedals! Both boys focused a LOT on watching their feet as they truly learned to pedal.

Thankfully, Grammy and Papa were over to help me guide the boys with their steering. Because our neighborhood has no sidewalks we had to go over a lot of bike riding safety rules. Eventually Jaden got the hang of his pedals and was able to look up a bit more. 

Cody had a little more difficulty with the pedals as he kept wanting to push them backwards. Because these are coaster bikes, he kept making himself stop and got a little frustrated.

So, he traded in his bike for a faster-moving scooter as we journeyed our way around the block.

Already by the next day of bike riding, though, Cody mastered the pedals. The boys asked to ride bikes nearly every day for the next two weeks. They are now fast enough that Mommy has to lightly jog to keep up with them both! Taking photos along the ride is no longer a possibility! :) We're happy that the birthday gift was a success. We see many days of bike riding in the future for these two cuties.