Calling All Superheroes

I wanted to share some photos of Dylan’s birthday.  We celebrated his actual birthday at Chevy’s.  He opened our gifts and got sung to by the waiters and even got his own sombrero.  The day of the party, though, my parents surprised all the kids by showing up unexpected (to them anyways)  thirty minutes before we had to leave to set up for the party.  Despite two slip-ups by Shawn the previous two days, the kids truly had no clue that they were coming.  I have video of their excitement when my parents arrived at the front door!  The party was at Calvary Church’s indoor playground.  There were nineteen children who came.  I thought about getting a group photo, but there was so much excitement that I did not want to stop the kids’ play time to gather for a photo.  We had a punch piñata that Shawn made.  Cody and his friend Isaac also got into the character of villains as they pretended (with black masks on) to be on a mission to steal Dylan’s presents.  The other children chose their super hero masks, and Spiderman loaned out some of his web-slinging power (a.k.a. silly string) to them.  I was concerned about where to let the children spray the silly string, in a side room that was all carpeted (We would put down a tarp, of course,) or the huge tiled lobby where the food tables were set up.  My concern was of the mass mess it could potentially make.  I knew that it could clean up on tile, but what if a staff member happened to walk by before we had a chance to clean up?  What kind of commotion would erupt just from the excitement of the children?  It just scared me either way, but the idea of the game sounded so awesome!  Shawn voted for the tiled lobby, but he was leaving to pick up the pizza, so I was left to face whatever was going to ensue.  I chose the lobby.  My heart was racing.  Cody and Isaac were ready to put on a great performance.  All nineteen children followed me to the door.  I warned them of the situation.  They were each armed with a can of silly string.  As soon as I opened the door, we spotted the villains, red-handed, with a present in hand.  Cody and Isaac each took their running stance position.  The younger superheroes who were with me froze for a couple seconds.  I glanced to my left, and there stood the JANITOR!!!  Oh my, I just wanted to tell the kids, “Never mind,” and hurriedly rush them back into the playroom.  But no!  These little superheroes charged and took off running for the bad guys.  I could hear the hissing of the silly string cans spraying web-like colored string all over Cody and Isaac and all over the floor!!  Yikes!  The janitor took one steady look and walked away.   I was so afraid he was going to come back and give me a huge scolding.  The kids were laughing, and then they turned the cans on themselves, and it was just a free-for-all.  They headed for the CARPET which I wasn’t sure how silly string would come out of that.  I quickly redirected them back to the large tiled area.  It seemed like everywhere I could hear the hissing of the cans and never really knew if the cans had been emptied yet.  After some fun with it, and the bad guys had been captured, I announced to the kids to throw their cans in the trashcan.  There were some boys, off to the side, still spraying it, so I began to walk the trashcan around TO the children.  Wow, a party had totally gone off in the room, and I smiled that smile of everything is going to be okay but not really sure it actually was! The kids had a blast, but, of course, they are oblivious to scary janitors who may come around the corner and totally kick you out!  Ha!  My dad walked around the corner and happened to find three brooms sitting out.  Shawn arrived about then, and everyone got the room spotless in no time while I cut the cake!  My mom laughs about how she was hopelessly picking up tiny pieces of silly string before the brooms were found…at that rate, with the amount of silly string explosion we caused, it would have taken all night!  I think my mom was afraid of the janitor’s wrath as well!   My dad has a great video of it all, and I am hoping I may be able to get some still photos from that.  I will say, the janitor never did come back, but I am sure when he did he was pleasantly pleased because everything looked spotless.  And, I have to say, it was pretty awesome when I see Colton (who is nine) look around while eating his pizza and say to Cody, “This is a pretty cool party!”  I couldn’t imagine what I would have done without my parents there.  They helped out sooo much!!  They even helped Shawn clean up while I watched the kids in the play room.  Shawn commented that it took about an army to get everything done, and my parents were a part of that army.  The kids were so excited by their surprise of coming here for the weekend.  The boys each told me they wished they could stay longer, and Anna whispered excitedly to me as she went upstairs to get her shower the one evening, “Mommy, I am going to go get my Fun Day underwear because of Grandma and Grandpa being here!”  She got some panties labeled “Fun Day” last week in a pack of Days of the Week underwear.  She felt this was time to break those out!  I don’t think there is any higher compliment!