Ten? Celebrating a Decade Since the Birth of Isaac

Today, we celebrated Isaac’s birthday with a group of his friends from church and school. We had such a wonderful time with everyone.

Trish D. ever so nicely volunteered to help me with things and brought some supplies with her and her children, Chaz and Pheobe. They arrived early and got busy: Trish with the preparations and the kids helped by playing with our children. After making scores of calls, John (nearly 17 now) managed to arrange to be out of the house for the duration of the party. (I certainly don’t blame him.)

They had a great time, with many loud noises and weird sounds being made. Next to arrive was Meghan C. and her Mom, Laurie, followed by Isaac’s friends Cassie, then Brian, and lastly, Michaela.

The party theme was “Creepy Crawlies”—mostly about bugs. We had giant bugs hanging up as decorations. We put together a “dirt cake” covered and embedded with crushed chocolate graham crackers, chocolate sandwich cookies, gummy worms and spiders. It was awesome and the kids, both the girls and the boys liked it a lot, especially Isaac and David, who helped put the gummy worms on and burrowing through the cake. We also took my corn snake and Isaac’s tarantula out of the cage. The snake was a big hit, and, surprisingly, nearly everyone was willing to pet the tarantula, although not hold it.

We had a few games to play with the kids, including a “bug quiz” (Isaac and Meghan both got perfect scores, although there were rumors of collusion.), a “bug hunt,” and one last one, named “bug toss.”

By the time of the bug toss, pizza had arrived, presents had been opened, and cake eaten, and the kids were in a state of sugar-frenzied, toy overloaded pandemonium. I got everything set up, and announced, “Okay, it’s time for us to play the bug toss game.” What I didn’t notice was that Doug had hooked up a self-contained Star Wars video game Isaac received from Cassie, which was, especially to the party-goers, a waaaaaaaaaay cooler game than the bug toss. No problem;, it give us adults more time to sit and chat, and I really enjoyed that. So thanks to the Dunns, Chalmers, Caslins, Vallerands, and the York family for making Isaac’s celebration so very special.

Of course, no day would be complete without a little friendly competition between the boys and the girls. Isaac, who is very competitive, had a hard time dealing with the boys’ team losing the bug hunt. Ah, the joys of a ten year old … It’s hard to believe he’s already ten.

Michaela, thanks so much for bringing the whoopee cushion. It was definitely fun watching a group of 8–10 year olds enjoying that sound, time and time (and time, and time, and time, and time) again. LOL.

Naomi and David had no trouble fitting in. Naomi reveled in having so many playmates, especially during the light saber and gun battles.