Happy Birthday Alex!

Rhoman with his cape and utility belt:
I got the magic relight candles- hee hee:) All the kids helped him blow on them.

Singing happy birthday:

The kids LOVED seeing Batman's sword and batarangs:

Today is Alex's 7th birthday! We had an all-boy party for him at the park. It was a batman super-hero training camp. I thought it was going to be such a terrific party, one that no one would forget and the kids would tell their great grandkids about it.

The first activity was to practice flying on the swings and hanging upside down on the jungle gym like a bat. Swings- 30 seconds; jungle gym- too scorching hot.

Ok, next activity, a little game we got at the party store--paper Jokers that you try and hit over with batarangs. Batarangs--cool but only one kid at a time could do it because there was only one, paper Jokers--didn't stand up.

Ok, next activity was flying bats. I got rubber bats and cut a paper towel tube and glued the tube ring on top of the bat. The object is for one kid to stand on the picnic table, hold one end of the string and one kid to stand on the ground holding the other end of the string, and the bat flies down the string on the tube. I used the glue gun to hold the rings on the bats, and they promptly fell off in about 10 seconds flat. Ok, so I told them to just take some bats and run around with them, and they'd have to take turns because there were 11 kids and 8 bats.

Todd was going to come at this point dressed up as Batman and give the kids their capes, but he was still at the house putting on the costume. Hmmmm. I had to stall. Kids are starting to fight. I told the kids to run around the playground as an obstacle course. Then, I decided to go to the next activities that we were supposed to do after Batman came, but oh well.

I told the kids that Riddler had stolen their utility belts and left this clue. It was a treasure hunt, and that went over well (phew!) and the last clue was: Alex's mom is really Catwoman! She really took them! Chase her to get them!
I had on a mask and all the kids chased me and caught me. I gave them their utility belts: strappy material with velcro with a toy walky talky, grenade, binoculars, compass, real flashlight, and paper clips that held three batarangs (that I cut out of cereal boxes and spray painted black).

Then the next activity: I had some toy silver and gold coins that I had hid in a rose garden just beyond the park. I told them Penguin stole some money and hid it and they had to find it. Another mom told me that she had heard a group of girls by us say, "Mom! Look what we found over there! Coins!" and had taken it all. I had put it over there right before the party. The mom went over there to talk to the girls and she said they were very nice about it and hurried and put it all back secretly as the boys were over there looking. I'm glad for that mom, because at that point Katie had a poopy diaper and I was changing her.

Todd finally made it there, in full costume (he borrowed it from his brother Bryan) and walked over to the boys at the rose garden. The boys had wide eyes when they saw him! As he was walking over there, a kid just at the park ran to his mom and said, "Mom!! Is that the real Batman??" Here's the video of Todd walking up to the kids at the party and giving them their capes:

That was definitely the highlight of the flop party. Alex and Nathan said they had fun, but Nathan cried because Alex got lots of presents and it wasn't Nathan's birthday. :( I wish Nathan did not have his birthday the week of Christmas!! (Todd is right now taking Nathan to the dollar store to let him pick out something).

Well, I have learned from this, to do a simple, very low-cost party (like Nancy's pool), and take the money and time we would have spent on a party like this and give it to Alex for his birthday.