Dylan's Friend Birthday Party

Alright. So, two days after Dylan's birthday, we had a "friend" party - the first time I have ever attempted such a thing. And boy, was it a pain in the butt. And expensive. I might do it every other year, or something, because it was hard, especially with a newborn in my life. Luckily, Mom watched Micah while Ben and I did the party. Dylan is really into Transformers, so we had a Transformers party. I got all my ideas from http://www.amazingmoms.com/ - thanks, Amy, for the website. I would have been dead meat without those ideas! They have hundreds and hundreds of themes for parties.

First, we had the kids make Transformers masks. Ben, helping Sadie:

Natalie stuck around to help with the party, instead of just dropping off her kids. I was really grateful for her help. My sister, Lex, was in town, and she came over to help. Thanks to both of you! Here is Nat, helping to make Jake's Bumblebee mask:

Below is Lex, helping one of our winner neighbor kids. See my post entitled "Mother Bear Instinct." I will figure out how to make links sometime! I am, after all, a huge technophobe.

Here are Dylan and his best friend, Marcus. Dylan was just informing me that he didn't want to do the other activities - that he and Marcus just wanted to play alone in his room. I was like, "Okay, then you can't have any of the toys your guests brought." That shut him up really quickly:

The kids just kind of ran around while they were waiting for others to finish. Sadie's mask slipped, and she couldn't see. So, instead of taking the mask off, she was blindly wandering toward the table, going, "Mommy? Help me..." It was so funny. She almost ran into the tree:

Then we had the kids do an obstacle course. I split them up into teams - Decepticons versus Autobots, with Decepticons wearing grey armbands and Autobots wearing blue arm bands - and I was going to time each team and give extra prizes to the winners, but it became apparent that it would have taken forever, and I would have lost most of the kids' interest by the time it was their turn. So I just let them go one after another. Here's Jake:

Sadie:

Dylan and winner neighbor, getting their treats after finishing the obstacle course:

Our next plan was to have the kids play freeze tag, but as I was trying to describe how to play freeze tag, I realized that I couldn't figure out how to play it! Here are Lexi and I, trying to figure out how to describe freeze tag:

And the kids, confusedly trying to listen to us:

Ben came up with a good idea to replace freeze tag - red light, green light. Here he is, showing them how it works:

The kids really had a great time with this:

Then we had a treasure hunt, which was probably the favorite activity of the day for the kids:

The "treasure" that the kids found was the All Spark, and when they opened it, there were little party favor bags inside:

Lex:

Then we went inside and had Dylan open presents:

Jake:

Sadie, sitting next to the other two winner neighbors:

Lex:

Brock:

Dylan's face as everyone was singing Happy Birthday:

Blowing out candles:

I never got that great of a photo of his cake, but it was a Transformers cake, courtesy of Wal-Mart. They do good work: