Spencer's 8th birthday party

The alternate title of this post is, "1 trillion pictures".

Spencer decided on the theme of his 8th birthday when he was still 6.  He wanted a Mario party for 7 and a Star Wars party for 8.  It gave us a lot of time to prepare, but honestly, not much preparation was needed because 1) we already have a ton of Star Wars stuff and 2) no adults were invited to this party and entertaining kids is just not as stressful.

The night before the party we got the kids into bed and then Michael looked at me and in all seriousness asked if we were going to be up until 1 am preparing everything.  I thought about it and said, "honestly, all I have to do is make and pour ganache on the cheesecake and cut the fruit.  We'll be done by 9 pm".

We had 6 out of 10 kids RSVP yes.  One of the kids that said he was coming did not come and one of the kids that did not RSVP showed up, so it all evened out.

The "goody" cups.

The table was set.  I added Star Wars characters as a simple center piece.

Star Wars Characters were actually used as the majority of our decorations.  Spencer has been collecting these for a few years.

We also used the tag from the big Darth Vader my parent's gave Spencer.

And before we moved them into his room we used the wall stickers we gave Spencer for his birthday.

This is the (edited for privacy) invitation we gave to the guests.  I'm still kind of impressed with the humor I inserted into it.

I had a lifeguard all lined up and then about five days before the party she quit texting me back.  Thanks a lot random teenager I don't know.  Luckily I found another lifeguard on Craigslist two days before the party.   He got there early and everything.  And he didn't murder us.  Win!

The swimming pictures just go on and on and on.  Feel free to scroll quickly.  I won't say much.

At one point all of the kids were out of the pool because they wanted to play with the water tables.  We didn't even put water in them before the party because we figured they were too babyish for 2nd graders.  

So I know Elliott is in this picture, but at one point Michael was the only person in the pool.  I told him he should fake drown so we could feel good about the money we were paying the lifeguard.

I got the kids back to the pool by telling them they should do their sweetest jumps off the board.

At one point Julian scraped his finger and Andrew (the lifeguard) used the first aid kit he brought to put a band-aid on it.  Money well spent.

After swimming it was time for lunch.  Spencer had specifically requested fried chicken and sandwiches from Subway.  Maryellen was so sweet and helpful and went to pick up the food for me.  I rounded out the menu with fruit, chips, Star Wars cereal (of which nobody ate a single bite) and Star Wars graham crackers.

The kids ended up eating all of the fried chicken and a lot of the sandwiches.

They ate a lot of chips, but there were so many chips to start with you couldn't tell that they had eaten any.  This is honestly the "after" picture.

After we ate we did presents.

It was a good opportunity to get Spencer's picture with each of his friends.

They are brothers.

We let the kids play undisturbed for about 30 minutes after presents.  They pretty much trashed the whole house.  Then it was time for cake.

We asked Sydney to take our family picture with the cake.  Bless her heart she did the best she could.

One of the kids did this.  I think it was George.

Multiple kids asked for multiple pieces.

We let each kid take a mask home with them in addition to their cup goody bag.

We finally got our family picture when Julian's mom came to pick him up.

And lastly, I remembered to get individual pictures of the kids in their shirts.  

Spencer loved his party and he's still talking about it.  He has not yet announced a theme for his 9th birthday and it's making me a little nervous.  I mean, I need time to prepare!