The Ricks!: # 5

So after Barry got paid for donating plasma earlier this week, we headed to Idaho Falls to a party store so Grayson could pick a theme for his birthday. We were there for what seemed like FOREVER (stores always feel like forever with three kids in tow), and Grayson just couldn’t make up his mind. We were all leaning toward a “knight” party, so we browsed through the costumes for cheap swords. After seeing everything, Grayson asked, “can I have a costume party?” And so the long drive to Idaho Falls was not in vain… we had a theme. Finally.

We invited just a few friends over this time, as opposed to the usual GIANT barbeque we traditionally have. But it was a lot of fun! While driving home from I.F. (as the locals call it), we asked Grayson what kind of cake he wanted. He was looking out the window and saw a tree… so his answer was, “A tree cake?”

Uh, yeah. Not happening, dude.

I wanted to resurrect the dragon cake I made a few years ago, but Barry told me to keep it simple (He knows me so well), so I went with a basic, number 5. It turned out pretty cute… although I really need to invest in some better food coloring. That blue color just wasn’t working for me.

So, there were ten kids in all. We were pleased to see that some of the parents even dressed up (we invited them to on the invitations). Grayson wanted to be a pirate, Barry wore his batman shirt with Grayson’s little cape, and I wore Jaye’s little angel wings, halo, and a whole lot of glitter. Oh and I should explain, originally Jaye was dressed as a princess, but when she saw Grayson pull out HIS costume box, she wanted to be Jinga, this guy from the cartoon “Beyblades”. So that’s what Jaye is dressed up as… I’m sure you couldn’t tell.

After everyone arrived ( a half hour late, haha), we announced, that since Grayson was a pirate, the kids needed to find his pirate treasure. I gave them the first clue, a picture of the basketball hoop, and thus they were off on a quest for treasure… AKA- a bag of goodies hidden behind the dumpster. (Classy place to hide stuff, right?)

Then they did a race that Barry and I created. Two kids had to race each other on those little push car toys to some buckets, in which they then had to throw two wiffle balls. After they got the balls in, they ran over to a water bucket, filled up their squirt toys and had to knock down a stack of cups with water. I was surprised at how big of a hit, that little race was. The kids wanted to keep playing that, over and over. Barry was such a trooper and reset the cups every time.

Afterwards, we did the traditional piñata. (I just looooove Pinatas! You probably didn’t know this, but we made a piñata for the adults to hit at our fourth of July Party. Awesome! Anyway...)

Grayson seriously wanted a Pikachu piñata (from Pokemon for you non-nerds), so his awesome mama made this pretty good one (for a first try), Pikachu. Even though the handle fell off after the second hit, masking tape saved the day, and all the kids got a turn.

Wow, Grayson’s birthday is getting pretty epic… this is a long blog post! But anyway, following the piñata, we squeezed everyone back into our apartment for cake, ice cream, presents, and those little confetti poppers. And then to end the party, we gave out Costume Awards. So that’s it. Grayson said it was “the best birthday, ever!” I practically had to force the kids out of their costumes for bed time.

I will consider it a job well done then.