Adin's Great and Unfortunately Eight

What? Hooooow did this happen? Meg was just baptized yesterday. Aren't they a couple years apart? Grrr. He did it thought. He went and turned eight despite my pleading, begging, warning and threatening. When I was up doing my treatments I decided to use the time to plan his birthday party. I do them every other year. I called him on the phone and asked him what kind of party he wanted. He really didn't know. I was browsing through ideas of parties for boys and mentioned a spy party and it was quickly decided that that was for him. There are just tons of party ideas online leaving little need for creativity. I'm really good at following directions and just tweaking a few things. It was a huge success. Every single one of the kids showed up and talked about it incessantly for weeks ahead.

These were the invites. They had to use their red decoder to read the information about the date and time. Then they had a key and some symbols to decode to learn the secret password that they needed to enter the safe house where they were reporting. I got all sorts of funny RSVP texts from parents like "Braydon reporting for duty, scheduled to arrive at safe house at time indicated." The password was "The Red Falcon has gone dark." The kids discussed this at school for the couple weeks before the party trying to decide what that meant.

We started the party with the kids having to give the passcode to get in. Then I took pictures of the kids and hurriedly printed ID badges for them. I knew that would be the most hectic time and it was. I don't know these kids very well to know their personalities and I they were getting suuuper hyper while I was in printing off name badges. I really wanted their pictures to be on the name badges so I had to take the pictures, run in and download them, then format them onto the name badge. There were some glitches and it had my blood pressure spiking. I returned to find kids jumping off furniture and standing on chairs to touch crystal chandeliers and kids wrestling on the floor. Oh boy. Then we put their fingerprints on their ID badges. I don't have a close up of the badges, darn it, but you can see them in the picture below. We started with a meeting in the situation room (sun room). I had a world map, a chalk board and the laptop set up. I made Brian videorecord a message giving the agents their mission. Heehee. There was a lot of laughing involved as we made the video.


First a funny attempt, there were quite a few of these.

And the masterful, Oscar worthy final product

I showed the kids this picture of the Red Falcon. I made it blurry and in black and white. Some of the kids still knew it was Meg, but that didn't matter.

After I made them start their physical fitness training. Push ups, Sit ups and jumping jacks.

 At that point Meg rang the doorbell and ran. The kids all ran for the door probably thinking that it was another kid. She left a package on the porch. They were freaking out when they saw the package. A couple of them thought it might be a bomb and they were serious. They very gingerly carried the package to the situation room. Inside there was a key and a walkie talkie. As I was opening it a couple other boys were stepping way back and leaving the room because they were sure it was going to explode. Heehee. It was hard to keep a straight face. We turned on the walkie talkie and it was Meg giving the next clue. They didn't pick up on the fact that it was the Red Falcon giving their next clue.  This is what she said:

The case has taken a turn for the worse. We have intelligence that the Red Falcon  has discovered that you have convened at the safe house. She knows you are preparing to destroy her plot. She knows the location of the safe house and you are no longer safe. We have had sightings of her as close as Ephraim, Utah. We know she is close. She will stop at nothing to thwart our plans to take her down. You are all in imminent danger. More information has been left at the dead drop location. It's protected by high beam infrared lasers so proceed with caution.

 We figured out that the dead drop location might be underground so we decided to try our basement. Our basement is pretty creepy. I put a suitcase way back in the polygamy hall and none of the kids would go get it. Eventually a girl and Adin stepped forward to do it. It was a little suitcase I got at DI a few years back. The key that was in the package on the doorstep opened the briefcase. They carried it back to the situation room and opened it.  Inside was an ipad that I had a voice changing app on. The voice I chose was kind of robotic and reeeally creeped the kids out. They were freaking out at this point. This is the message from the ipad

Hello agents, my handlers have let it slip that your target is hiding in the safe house. You are now in serious danger. As you look for her be careful. She is very good at setting traps to alert when someone is approaching. If you find her journal you will have everything you need to close in on her and save NSA. She will not make it easy for you to get your hands on that journal. Enclosed you will find a map. Follow this map to the location where we believe the journal has been hidden. If you find her, remember your mission is to take her down and dismantle the bomb. Be safe and watch each others backs.

The map led them to the garage area. There is a wooden box in their for toy storage. I installed a lock thingy on it and put a combination lock on it. There were balloons all over the floor that they had to pop and in three of them they found pieces of a puzzle that they put together, which gave them the combination for the lock. Inside they found a backpack. It had another map and silly string and wire cutters. They followed the map which led them to the backyard where Meg was. They were relentless with that sill string. 

 Meg wasn't feeling like a good sport after this.  :) Poor girl. I sure was grateful for her help though.

 Here they are dismantling her bomb.

 Now that the mission was solved we went in and they decorated their own cupcakes at the cupcake bar and drank water that was turned into "truth serum". Then they did presents,

That's Adin's best friend here, Jared.

It was a huge success and made Adin super happy. I was so worried that the kids wouldn't play along with the mission and would be rude or ruin it with bad attitudes. Not so. It did start out with one kid saying, that he knows this is all fake so he was just going to laugh at everything. I thought that wasn't so nice to say. I came to realize it was because he was scared to death. He stuck by me the whole time and kept saying, I'm sticking with you, this is so scary. :)


A few days later was the actual birthday. It was on a Sunday, which is this eight year old least favorite day. :) I'm hoping he grows out of that. The benefit was that daddy was home from work so presents were done early. He's so easy to shop for right now.

Lot's of building stuff for this kid. He got a couple coasters. One was as tall as him. He built it in two days and completely by himself. 

He picked the dinner. Soft pretzels with pizza sauce and honey butter.

Somewhere I went wrong with these kids. They keep picking rainbow chip for their birthday cakes. They get it from Brian. Eh. It's no fun to decorate with and just takes okay.

We love this kid more than we can express. He brings so much fun and laughter to our lives. He's a bright spot for sure. He is hilarious and witty. He is super smart. He is very thoughtful and kind hearted. He is still a mamas boy and I hope he will be forever. He really is our favorite boy in all the land. We are so blessed that he is ours.