The Fear Factor Birthday

We had my son's birthday party this weekend. His best friend showed up early, and the boys sat & worked on building a pirate ship my sister had sent him earlier. As the other boys showed up they were ordered into the room as well, to build ships. (they had to be dragged away from the knight in our dining room first) At 7:30 we decided that nobody else was showing up, and started with an Iron Toes challenge. They had to pull marbles out of a bucket of ice water with their toes. The boys loved this challenge. But it was my DAUGHTER who won this one, by 8 marbles. She was a little madwoman. And here I'd thought she was going to sit & play in her room during this!!! All of the boys were duly impressed, and were cheering each other on... it was awesome. Then there was Minnow-Bob... bobbing for apples, in a bucket full of 40 live minnows. The boys were actually really good at this one, and the minnows kind of hid at the bottom of the bucket so it wasn't quite as gross as we'd been hoping it would be. They all figured out how to get the apples out by the stems (note... next time pick the stems off first!!!) and everyone but my lil girl pulled all 3 of their apples out without getting too grossed out. One boy went back & pulled the stems off of his apples, and pulled them out again - just to see if he could. And finally it was time for Birthday Grub. They'd all seen the tub of minnows, and were talking about how many they'd have to eat (hahahahahaha) and daring each other to eat more than a dozen - it was awesome. When we pulled out 5 plates with baby food, garbanzo beans, tofu, worms & crickets two of the boys gave up immediately. Sheesh, you'd think after talking about eating live minnows this was a walk in the park, right? Anyway, I think my son was the biggest shock on this one, he ate EVERY SINGLE cricket at the table! Yeah, 9 crickets inside my boy. (I kissed him on the forehead that night) The boys were gagging & retching, and he just sat there popping them like popcorn. The birthday cake was awesome. We made a kitty-litter cake using directions we'd found on the internet. It didn't end up looking QUITE as gross as it did in the picture, but it tasted good and the kids loved it. We announced the winner, and awarded him with a Magnetix bug with light-up eyes. It was great, everyone was jealous... and the winner was ecstatic. The gift baggies were pretty popular too. One of the little gifts was a rubbery skull that blinks in random colors when you squeeze it. They were awesome... nobody could put them down. Then came the twist. After we'd filled all the boys full of caffeinated pop & sugary cake, they all ended up sleeping over. I had bouncing boys tearing through the house until 11pm, when we told them we had to keep it down a bit. Fortunately one of the boys had dropped off by then, so we just popped in a Spy Kids movie & let everyone crash in sleeping bags all over the living room. I grabbed my daughter & cloistered the two of us into our bedroom so the boys could have the run of the house with my husband watching them, and he says they stayed up giggling but staying quiet until about 3. As the boys woke up, they headed into my son's room to continue the invasion from the night before, and when we called breakfast time they swarmed the table... and only ate 3-4 pancakes each! (I've got a freezer full of pancakes right now) After that they ran outside to play some sort of army game, but it was cold enough that they were back in pretty quick. So it was back to the MegaBlocks until I announced that it was time for church. I had to bring all the boys in one car-load, and come back to pick up my husband & daughter. But it was awesome. The kids all had a great time, and my son loved every minute of it. Now my lil girl can't stop talking about HER party, in February!