Simply US: Part Deux: Noah's 12th birthday party

     It was really hard coming up with ideas for a party for my "tweener" who absolutely thinks he is an older teenager. He wanted to simply "hang out" with his friends. But I knew from another party he had been to that even though he thought that was what he wanted, he really didn't want that. Noah then wanted to play manhunt outside. I don't really know much about manhunt other than I think it is what we used to call sardines. It is an elaborate hide 'n seek game. Again, with girls coming I knew this wouldn't be an activity that would sustain the whole party. The other thing I realized that would make the party a success is that whatever activities we came up with it had to be an activity that they could focus on but also they could focus on each other as well. So, I thought and researched on the internet and came up with a whole list of activities for the party. Better prepared with more games than not enough. We only ended up having time for one game, but I think it was a blast.
     Noah and his friends played a version of the white elephant game! It was actually perfect for this age group. They would play and they would get to take something home with them without it being the "babyish" goody bag of yesteryear! Oh noah, don't grow up too quickly! They would be excited to take something home with them. Perfect!
     It was fun to go to Five Below and find some funny items for the white elephant gift exchange! And then I had to resort to gift cards when there wasn't enough funny stuff. I knew the kids would love the gift cards though! It would help give them the independence they wanted.
     As everyone arrived, we had them head downstairs for some "hang out" time. It was fun to see everyone arrive. I could tell that Noah was excited and happy that these friends were coming. It was interesting to see how many of them were from Ridgeview and how many of the were girls! I was meeting many of them for the first time that night. After everyone arrived, we played the white elephant game. I think they had so much fun. They loved the idea of being able to "steal" a gift away from someone else and the idea of opening up gifts for themselves "even though this was Noah's birthday party." What I loved about it and I think made it work was that even though you each had your own turn, you never know when you might get back in the game by having your present stolen and then you would have to go up and open another gift, so you always had to be paying attention to who got what, but you could also have fun with the friends around you. There was a lot of talking, laughing, and noise during this game which I equated with success! Johnny, one of Noah's friends actually had his gift stolen like 6-7 times; he took it so good naturedly. It surprised me some of the things the kids really wanted and were excited by- a box of swiss cake rolls, boxes of candy, and headphones. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would to have 22 kids open the gifts. It took about 40 minutes! So, we had about 30 minutes for manhunt and 20 minutes for cake and ice cream! Noah had so much fun.