The Ninja Army Descends.....

Jack's 8th birthday (how did THAT happen) is in a few days, and with his baptism this coming weekend, that meant Saturday was D-Day.....or rather, BP-Day (birthday party day.) For some unknown reason (temporary insanity, probably), I had decided inviting nine boys over to the house for three hours of ninja activities was a good idea. Well, come on now, it's a GREAT idea....if you're the kid. If you are the mom who is still somewhat interested in returning said children to their parents with all their original bits, it's a bit of a nightmare.

At any rate, four pm rolled around and this gang of hooligans began arriving. Mike took their pictures as they came in so that he could work a little photoshop magic for their goodie bags later.

(That's a picture of Dominic as a ninja on his goodie bag. Awesome!)

Then wonderful selfless Bro. Hall came over to teach them some taekwondo. He was all ready to be amazing (he's a black belt) but the little fighters were way more interested in getting on with beating on each other than learning the tricks of the trade, so his potentially awesome display got caught short.

(How could this not have been spell-binding? I don't know, but it sure was entertaining watching them trying to do what Bro Hall was doing!)

Since the first thing we'd learned was the ninjas are stealthy, we played hide and seek. THen everyone piled out of the house (into the mirey muddy yards -- yeah for carpet) for Capture the Flag. Potentially the most violent version of Capture the Flag ever played. I now realize why it is that African warlords use small boys to conduct their wars. Brutal!!

(The Winners! Three times in a row! Although the second time they were disqualified for illegal use of the house as a thru-way)

Eventually it was time to come in and open some presents. Surprisingly, weapons were an extremely popular choice among the 7-9 year old set. They took a teeny tiny braek to inhale a bit of pizza, and then commenced with the Beyblade Battles. Now, I haven't the foggiest idea what a Beyblade is or what constitutes a legendary one -- but apparently some of them ARE legendary, and apparently that is a good thing. The kids gathered round the Beyblade stadium and if you didn't know better, you'da thought they were playing craps. All huddled together and chattering away in increasingly excited tones.




Eventually, the lack of violence became too much for them and it was back outside for a bit more Capture the Flag and then thankfully, it was almost time for the parents to return. That left just enough time for the pinata. Now, I happened to have a pink pinata lying around my garage, and I therefore didn't really want to go spending another twenty bucks on something that was just going to be battered to death. But how on Earth to convince an 8 year old boy that anything pink was acceptable. Aha!! I had a flash of genius. I hoisted the cute little pink donkey into the air and said to the assembled boys,
" What color is that pony??"
"PINK!!!!!!!", they screamed in disgust.
"And what do we do with things?"
"KIIIILLLLLL THEM!!!!!!" came the reply

Then we had a real "Lord of the Flies" moment with all nine sweet little boys chanting in unison, Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!! I feared for my life a little.

And then it was over. Jack was pleased as anything, I felt briefly like I might be an ok parent after all, and then we all collapsed from exhaustion.