Zachary's Monster Jam Birthday

This picture was suppose to be at the end, but it isn't easy to move it all the way down (is anyone else having issues like that?) so it's staying here. Here are the favors/prizes from the games. (Not nearly as impressive as Amber's lootbags) I am proud to say that I made the monster truck bags with the racing flag handles (courtesy of Boagie's teaching). Everyone also got a mini-pennant, a Monster Mutt place mat that I had laminated, their monster truck they decorated, a flying disc that I thought was bigger when I ordered them, and the cutest little pull back monster trucks from the cupcakes.

Zachary's big day had finally arrived after months of planning and anticipating on my part. This year we actually got to have a backyard party in the humid July heat with only a slight 5 minute rain shower that was timed perfectly while the food was being served.

Super Boagie MADE this truck cover to fit over Michael's truck so that Zachary's favorite monster truck "Monster Mutt" could come to his party. We tried to get the music "Who Let The Dogs Out?" playing but couldn't get the disk to work and ran out of time.

Zachary's shirt has Monster Mutt and Monster Mutt Dalmatian on it with the words "I Let The Dogs Out." For the second year in a row, he had an ear infection on the day of his party. This time, he had just finished his antibiotics and seemed to be in fairly good spirits. We planned the party for 4:00 which is right after his nap; in fact, we actually had to wake him up at 4:00 to come down when people started arriving.

Upon arriving in the "pit" guests were to decorate their own monster truck. Zachary chose a purple one.

This is a game I made using a laminated poster of monster trucks, a poster board ramp, and some plastic toy truck tires. The kids had to roll the tires up the ramp and then watch as they came to rest on a picture of a truck.

Leah and Mikie playing the roll and ramp game.

This was my mom's idea and it turned out great! The kids used the spin art machine complete with sand textured brown and black paint to make mud cyclones (or donuts) just like the monster trucks do on tv.

This is the ball toss game that I borrowed from Lenny's birthday party (thanks, Kelli!)

The only other thing Zachary likes about as much as his monster trucks are balls so this was a perfect game for him to play.

We emptied out the sand box and filled it with rubber tire shreds, funnels, cones, and tubes. (yes, ladies, I kept the tire shreds that I took from the Navy base in Whidbey Island for Tate's party and my guilt is still haunting me! :)

Daddy and Zachary have fun with the tire shreds.

Another activity not pictured was Drive The Digger. The kids took turns driving the battery powered Grave Digger truck that came all the way from Florida (thanks Max & Lynn!)

A birthday party would not be complete without a tattoo station. (these things lasted for weeks!)

One of Zachary's favorite activities was rolling his monster trucks in brown paint and then making tire tracks on white sheets that we hung from our deck (which also served the purpose to keep the kids from going under there and throwing rocks).

Making tracks!

Zachary was so cute when he saw this poster. He went over and started naming each truck and pointing at them. There was one he didn't know so he said "Who's that Mommy?"
This is the freestyle arena: a brown tarp, some wet sand, colorful cones, and a remote control Grave Digger. I also had two little chairs that the kids could sit in as they waited their turn. I gave them two flip books with numbers so they could be the judges and give their friends a score from 1-10.

Zachary in the middle of the freestyle arena.

About a week before Zachary's birthday, Mikie started talking about his mini-golf birthday and so Zachary started saying he wanted a mini-golf birthday party too. Well, after months of preparation for this monster truck party, I was not about to switch it to a mini-golf party. Instead, I added one monster truck themed mini-golf hole up on the deck and everyone was happy! It was my mom's idea to tape the monster truck pictures to the rocks and it looked so cute (thanks Mom)!

All the kids (minus one 2 year old and a newborn baby). Including my children we had 14 kids 6 years and younger. Plus 5 cousins not pictured. It was so much fun!

GAMES

The first game was pin the driver on the monster truck. I cut out pictures of each of the children and they took turns trying to put themselves in the driver's seat to earn their party bag.

Red Light...........

Green Light!

Everyone picked a monster truck and raced down the driveway to earn their placemat.

The last game we played as it started to sprinkle (see raindrops on deck) was the launching race. I drew a racing bracket on poster board and let the kids choose a little monster truck for the competition. As the winner of each race advanced to the next round, the loser got to go pick out a mini-pennant for their prize. The final race came down to Lily and her sister Kaitlyn. In a close match, Lily was victorious and took home the grand prize El Torro Loco truck.

This is the best picture I have of my two boys together on this day. Mikie has a Monster Mutt t-shirt on as well (it's a size 6...a little big).

THE FOOD

I used Amber's idea of having the food labels made from little wooden trucks that I found at Michael's. I seem to have plenty of time in the weeks before the party so I took the time to make each truck resemble the real ones and hot glued some tires to them to finish them off. They really did turn out very well even though I am in no way an artist. Here's the list of food:

Monster Mutt Hot Dogs

Bulldozer Burgers

El Torro Loco Chili (for the dogs)

Grave Digger Dip (taco dip)

Taz Manian 'Devil'ed Eggs

Superman Spark Plugs (Cheetos)

Captain's Curse Clean Air Filters (ruffles chips)

Destroyer Dirty Air Filters (BBQ chips)

Virginia Giant Vegetables

Freedom Force Fruit

Maximum Destruction Mac N' Cheese (car shaped pasta)

Pouncer Pasta Salad (wheel shaped pasta)

Dalmatian Dirt Pudding

Blue Thunder Jello Trucks

The Grave Digger Dip

The Pouncer Pasta Salad

(Lynn's famous recipe...everyone loved it!)

Dalmatian Dirt Pudding

THE CAKE

It turned out so much cuter than I thought it was going to!
I found a similar cake online: a Blue Thunder truck made entirely of fondant. I knew I didn't want to attempt an entire cake out of fondant since I had never worked with it before, but most of the details were made very easily with it. My mom had someone make the base out of wood to support the carrot cake (Zach's favorite). I added black frosted donuts as tires, a fondant ball with the birthday message written on it, and two orange cone candles.

The cupcakes each held a mini pullback action monster truck for the kids to take home. I also made a chocolate & peanut butter cake (thanks Amber!) in the shape of a tire/wheel, but didn't get a picture of it before it got cut.

Happy Birthday To You....He loved blowing out his candles.

After cake and ice cream, I changed Zachary into his monster truck swim suit and turned on the truck wash sprinkler. The kids had a blast running through the freezing water on a hot day.

Then they started filling up the cones with water and dumping them in the freestyle arena.

Time for presents! Zachary got so many nice things but here are a few of his favorites. As soon as he saw the Elefun he started making elephant sounds.

Rags the dog from Raggedy Ann and Andy made Zachary smile so big. He still loves to give him hugs and say "awwwww."

And his favorite gift was given to him by Boagie and Grandpa....a Monster Mutt bowling ball! (Mikie got a Blue Thunder one)

You all know what an obsession planning parties is for me, but what you don't know is that I could never pull off any of my parties without the help of Super Boagie. She is the one who manages to get everything organized, completed, displayed, served, set up, cleaned up, and is the sole reason why my parties seem to run so smoothly. Besides all the great ideas and endless energy she has during the planning process, she is also doing a million and one things behind the scenes the day of the party. I am so thankful my mom can be at my children's parties, but even more grateful for all her hard work and selfless efforts she puts forth to make these days special for my little guys. Thank you mom, (Boagie and Bodeek) we love you so much!!!!!!

(I forgot to mention that the really cute Monster Mutt t-shirt that I ordered for myself never came in the mail, so minutes before the guests arrived I squeezed into Mikie's Predator/Pouncer/Prowler youth small shirt.)

At the end of the party, Zachary waved goodbye to some of his friends. We let the boys play for a long time as we cleaned up and finally put them to bed around 10:30. I always turn the baby monitor on to see when Zach falls asleep and this night we all crowded around watching him as he clapped his hands and sang himself to sleep "Happy Birt-day to you, Happy Birt-day to you, Happy Birt-day to you, YAY Zachary!" I guess that means he enjoyed his "birt-day."

July 4th

Since we live so close to D.C., I wanted to see the national fireworks this year. Michael thought that he found the perfect place for us to watch them on the Bolling Air Force Base across the river from the Washington monument and at first it really was the best place. They had the Navy & Air Force band performing on stage, bouncy houses, a playground, good food including turkey legs, and to our surprise they also had a very small..............

Mini-Golf course!

Today was the day we learned that Zachary is a dweller (just like me). On the very first hole, Michael helped him tap his ball in to speed things along because there was a line quickly forming behind us and Zachary completely lost it! He screamed and screeched and wailed and pointed and screamed some more. He absolutely refused to move on to any other hole. Michael and Mikie continued playing while I tried to convince the little siren that we still had 17 other holes to knock the ball into. I didn't think it was fair that I was missing all the fun so I struck a deal that Michael would play the first 9 holes and I would get to play the last 9. Finally, when there was a lull in the stream of people filing in, Michael took him back to hole #1 and let him putt it in. That's all he needed to be happy and then came to join us on hole #11 as if nothing had ever occurred. Lesson learned: don't EVER touch Zach's mini-golf ball. HOW EXASPERATING!

Michael is attempting to retrieve the ball that Zachary stuck in the model fighter jet.

One of the cutest pictures I have of the two of them!

Besides the mini-golf meltdown, poor Zachary had a few other "issues" to deal with. He was on antibiotics for that ear/sinus infection he had on his birthday and it upset his tummy a lot that day. I changed a few disgusting diapers on the grass behind the outhouses and even got the mommy privilege of catching vomit in my hands after an entire hot dog decided to reappear while we were in the food tent.

Now, back to the part where Michael "thought" he'd found the perfect place for viewing fireworks. It was so pretty when the first few booms lit up the night sky above the Washington monument and twinkled in the reflection of the river while listening to the patriotic music on stage (it actually looked more like dusk because it never gets dark in a city filled with lights). However, we were down wind........which meant..........the remainder of the show was seen through a thick haze of smoke. The boys' attention seemed to be getting cloudy as well; so, it was a relief when the fireworks ended 20 minutes later. A quick change into PJ's and it was time to hit the road and fight the traffic which didn't seem to be nearly as bad as we had expected. '

If we are still here next year, I would love to go watch them downtown and up wind.