It was that time of the year again. My son Eddie’s 8th birthday was fast approaching, and after last years cool Karate Party I was wondering what on earth we would do for this year’s theme. Things have a way of making themselves obvious where Eddie’s concerned though. He had a new obsession. Of ALL things…. it was James Bond! Not entirely appropriate for an 8 year old, but my husband had been showing him some of the coolest parts of certain James Bond films (while avoiding the really violent and sexy bits) and it seems the oh so cool and suave Bond really struck a chord with our young man, particularly Pierce Brosnan. I must admit I never saw this one coming! Eddie begged for a James Bond ‘costume’ and desperately wanted a 007 party. Ummm…. considering most of his friends don’t even know who James Bond is I convinced Ed that a ‘Movie’ theme would be a better idea, and he agreed that would work. As long as he got to posture around in a dinner suit with a lemonade martini he was happy! So I bought some inexpensive second hand ‘pageboy’ items on Ebay. (Thank heavens for Ebay!)
Before the party I decided to take Eddie into the studio for some photographs so I could attempt to mock up a poster as a present for him. I’m a little nervous about showing these images because I am one of those people who really hates guns. In fact I was always going to be a mother who didn’t allow her kids to have toy guns. I’m not sure what changed that. I’ll admit it was partly out of my enthusiasm to make the posters really cool. But the main reason was that I realised Eddie is not a violent kid by nature, and that to him the appeal of Bond is all about being cool, in control, problem solving and intelligent. Oh, and to look good. He is a somewhat vain creature… my Ed! Ha ha ha….
Anyway, here are the 2 posters that I printed and framed for his birthday, followed by lots of photographs from Eddie’s cool Movie Party!
We set the scene for the the Movie Party by hanging blank CD’s from fishing line all over the room, and borrowed a few movie posters from our local video store. We also played movie theme music, like the James Bond theme, Mission Impossible, Star Wars, Transformers and Spiderman. It was very cool! I hadn’t actually predicted Scooby Doo though!
Eddie was a gracious host, and was in his element sitting at the head of the dinner table with all of his best friends.
Time for cake! I drew the line at making a gun cake, mostly because of my horror at the thought of black icing. Yeeuch! So I settled on a popcorn cake instead. Unfortunately I don’t think the guests quite got the connection. They still ate the cake though…. so that’s O.K.
Just heart stoppingly gorgeous. He makes me weak at the knees sometimes.
The popcorn cake, which didn’t really turn out anything like I originally planned. It was yummy though.
On to the party games. As hard as I tried I couldn’t come up with any movie themed games, so I just set out to make them a little ridiculous and lots of fun. The first game was a race to eat Fruit Loops from a string without using their hands. Funny!
The second game was to knock a rubber ball of the top of a container…. using only a serving spoon hanging between the legs on a string. Lots of hip thrusting and wriggling. Even funnier!
The last game was a riot. Quite simply they had to wrap each other up like a Mummy using toilet paper. I could never have predicted how much the kids would love this game. SO much fun with just one pack of budget loo paper. My husband Mick reckoned it’s because they’re told their entire lives not to waste the stuff…. so to be told ‘go for it’ was like an 8 year old’s version of heaven!
We had an uneven number of contestants, so lucky little Perry (my other son) scored Daddy as his wrapper. Daddy was VERY skilled with toilet paper as it turned out!
Eight year olds in heaven.
The aftermath! Just awesome.
It really was a great party. Without doubt the best part for the kids was the games. They loved them, and wanted to play each game a second time. I had realised that ‘Statues’ and ‘Simon Says’ really wasn’t going to cut it for the kids now they’re getting older. It really was worth the time I spent dreaming up very silly games, and they do love it when things are well organised. My other little man, Perry, has started school this year, so the next major party will be for him. It seems I’ve unwittingly set a precendant for awesome birthday parties now, so I better start planning soon. Oh Lord… the pressure!!! I dare not let them down. It’s not really about the party itself though, and it’s certainly not about being fancy or spending a lot of money. It’s about showing them how important and special they are by making a lot of effort. Eddie certainly gets that part, and not only buzzed for days after his party, but also thanked us many times… even days later. Yeah. I’m very happy!
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by Annie Warren
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