Stockton turned 9 on June 25, 2018. His birthday fell on a Monday but when you have a summer birthday, any day is a good day! We started the celebrations on the Saturday before his birthday, the 23rd. My parents, Jeff, Gene, and Brett all came up to help Justin with the greenhouse. My mom helped me get things ready for his party later that evening. When there was a break in the work outside, Stockton opened his presents from Grandma and Grandpa Moyes. They gave him clothes, a Jazz hat and Donovan Mitchell t-shirt (you will notice from here on out how that hat pretty much never comes off), a new white shirt and tie, and a basketball hoop for the trampoline.
It was Stockton's year for a friend party. To be honest, it took me a while to plan something-I just wasn't feeling it. But Stockton was so excited and we managed to throw a really great party together! He has known that he wanted to have a laser tag party since we got the laser tag guns for Christmas so it was easy to put together some games along with the laser tag. He made his list of friends to invite and it ended up getting quite long but that's why I like having parties at home-you can invite whoever you want and there is no need to exclude anyone. He invited Easton and Corbin Anderson, Easton Anderson (not a typo-there are two in our ward), Kelton Webb, Riley McPhie, Sam Freeman, Vince Witt, Ben Mahoney, Trevin Tatton, Locke Erickson, Hawkins Webster, Gavin and Grant Broadbent, Cameron and Riley Tanner, Luke and Jake Goodrich. Kelton and Vince were the only ones who weren't able to make it. Add my 4 kids and we had a total of 19 kids there, I think!
As all the boys were arriving, Molly started a game of tag with a variation I wasn't familiar with but all the kids knew how to play so they must play it at school.
I always like to eat at parties because it takes a good chunk of time. We kept it simple with hot dogs, chips, watermelon, and Sprite with Kool-aid ice cubes. I love how everyone wanted to surround Stockton.
Our first game was water balloon dodgeball. Thank goodness for those water balloon bundles that you can fill up so fast!
The next game was cup of chance. I put 19 cups on a tray and put water in about 2/3rds of them. I numbered the cups and had pieces of paper with numbers on them as well. They had to draw a number and then Justin or I put the corresponding cup on their head. Some got wet and some didn't!
 |
| Justin didn't just put the cup on their head-if they were going to get wet, he enthusiastically threw it in their faces! |
We did relay races where you would use a water gun to squirt a plastic cup along a piece of string. Next time I would make sure my string was tighter and use bigger guns.
 |
| Riley and Gavin-it was too crazy so I didn't even get a picture of the birthday boy |
We did water balloon pinata. We filled up balloons with water and air and hung them from the zipline. The idea was to hit them with a bat and get sprayed with water, however, we learned that you need to fill them mostly with water and a little bit of air because ours didn't pop no matter how hard they were hit. We finally gave up and the boys just jumped up and grabbed them and popped them over their heads.
We played human pinata. I had Molly and Gavin wear the shirts. I should have taken the strings from the water gun/cup relay down because Molly ran right into them and got clotheslined. It knocked the wind out of her and left a welt behind her ear for several days. I hurried and slipped the shirt on and let the boys chase me while she had grandma nurse her wound.
I had a few more games planned but we were actually running short on time and we still needed to do some essential party things and play laser tag. So I took them off the party schedule (they were simple to prepare for so it was no biggie) and we skipped to opening presents. Stockton got some fun gifts! He got Legos, a whiffle bat and ball, water balloons (the quick-to-fill kind), a cubix tube, baseball pinball, a giant bouncy ball, baseball cards, lots of candy, football cards, basketball cards, a mini marble run, lawn darts, and a guide to making paper airplanes.
Instead of a birthday cake or cupcakes, we had an ice cream sundae bar. We had two different types of ice cream with several toppings. Since we only have 8 laser tag guns, the boys traded off playing laser tag in the yard and eating their ice cream. Stockton sat out for most of laser tag-the lure of his new gifts was too strong and he just wanted to look at them better.
 |
| Brynn, Easton, Stockton, Ben, Grant |
The party was a success! It was complete chaos with all those crazy boys running around but makes me love our yard even more for the space it gives us for things like this. I had a small box of poppers for each boy that they did out on the street while waiting for parents to pick them up. Stockton had a lot of fun and I'm happy he has so many friends to come over and celebrate him!
We had Cameron and Riley stay over the Friday night before and they were able to play all day on Saturday so they could be at the party. Gavin and Grant came up in the morning with Jeff and then stayed for the party and my mom and dad took them home. Heidi was so nice to drive up and drop her boys off while she killed time with Evie and Eli in Heber. Cousins are the best and I hope my kids always are best friends with each other first and cousins next.
 |
| Eli and Ivy |
Stockton looked sharp for church in his new white shirt and tie, despite needing a haircut.
Gene, April, and Brett came up on Sunday afternoon. They gave him some contraptions blocks and Sour Patch Kids. I mentioned this idea to April a few weeks ago and they have seriously been a hit! They are put away currently but they have come out nearly every single day that we've been home since his birthday. It's fun to see what the kids build and what their imaginations come up with.
Stockton's new Lego set that he put together.
Justin's cousin, Amy Fife, was staying at Gene and April's house for a few days and she drove up that night with her two youngest kids. I had never met her (or don't remember if I had) so it was nice to get to know her and visit with her. Her son, Maddox (14), loved Stockton's trading card collection and her daughter, Norah (9), built contraption blocks with Molly the whole night.
 |
| Maddox Fife and Stockton |
 |
| Norah Fife and Molly |
Stockton and Molly spent the entire day building contraptions with the new blocks and running outside to practice their slam dunks on the trampoline basketball hoop. We've been enjoying watching as many World Cup games as we can this past month and so they watched one of those too. Stockton wanted grilled hot dogs for lunch so I did that. Then I took the kids for snow cones after lunch. Stockton had dropped his hot dog and got ketchup and mustard on his new shirt and was having a complete meltdown because I couldn't get it washed a dried in 10 minutes so he actually sat in the car for most of the time and then when he did come out, he sat in the corner and sulked.
He requested meatballs for his dinner but I wanted to go to the lake and told him he couldn't do both. He grudgingly settled for meatballs the day after his birthday and I let the kids pick out Lunchables for dinner at the lake. Justin and I had leftover cobb salad and that was yummy. We took his presents to the lake and he was okay with not doing the traditional scavenger hunt. We gave him a baseball tee (super heavy and sturdy), a net to hit all his balls into, and the roller coaster challenge. He also got his favorite treats (Mike and Ike's, peach rings, and blow pops).
It was a great night at the lake. I never take the bigger blow-up paddleboard when it's just me so it's nice to have Justin come along because when we have the big paddleboard, we can all go out on the lake together. We paddled over to the island where there is a rope swing. Molly was the only one who did it. Some of them played baseball and lawn darts and some dug in the sand. We stayed until the sun started to go behind the mountains and it started to get chilly.
To finish off Stockton's birthday, we had cake. He had told me his favorite cake was angel food cake so I made an old favorite that April makes occasionally. It is angel food cake layered with a chocolate/cream concoction and then frozen. So it's essentially an ice cream cake...much easier than making a cake, making frosting, and decorating a cake!
Happy Birthday, Stockton!!
Comments
Post a Comment