The Deal Family is in recovery mode today from a MONSTER of a party we hosted yesterday! And yes, we do depart for Europe in six days, and no, I haven’t even begun to pack, but putting this party together was WAY easier than I expected thanks to the help of House Party, who provided us with a case of Natural Cheetos and 20 Nerf Super Soakers.
As life has been too crazy lately for me to really stress over this shindig (not to mention I’m about as ANTI Martha Stewart a gal as you’re gonna meet), we decided to keep it pretty simple. We gave each kid a super soaker when they walked in, gave each adult a beverage and some Cheetos, and let the fun begin!
The party started at 4PM with us thinking it would wrap up around 7. Well, at 9 when the sun went down the kids FINALLY got cold enough to put the super soakers away and snuggled up around the Muppet Movie while the Moms hung around and chatted until almost 11.
As kids cycled in and out playing chase, tag, and whatever games they came up with, I just hung back and listened as I heard various versions of “best party ever!” and knew I had done my job.
Besides thanking Nerf and Cheetos I wanted to close this post with a lesson learned: Sometimes it’s best to just hang back and let kids be kids. I could have pre-planned every minute on a spreadsheet, organized some sort of tournament, held a contest, etc. etc. etc. but all I really had to do was hand them the tools: Nerf guns, buckets of water, and a nice patch grass on a beautiful day.
(Note to House Party planners, who instead of actual soakers sent me $5 coupons to hand out at the party: have you ever actually met a 9 year old boy? Imagine how differently the party would have gone had I said “Welcome, kids! Here’s a COUPON!”. Fortunately Target and Walgreens came to the rescue with sales that made the guns pretty much free so I picked them up prior to the party.)
Sounds like a total blast!