The Spencinator doesn't do well with surprises, or parties for that matter, so we kept it small and low key.
I had him go with my husband to run some errands Saturday morning. While they were gone, I decorated the dining room. I just used decorations I had on hand or that were bought earlier in the year on clearance, and my mom brought the balloons in his two favorite colors: sky blue and orange. We even wrapped the end seat with crepe paper just for the birthday boy.
I got out our handmade birthday banner:
And although his favorite dessert is lemon meringue pie (which I bought), I had to make something chocolate. I followed the recipe on the box of the Hershey's Ultimate Chocolate Brownies mix to make these brownie bites.
They were delicious and looked so cute. I had gotten a pack of 100 Halloween mini cup cake liners in
orange and black for .20 cents after Halloween. I just used the orange ones since that's one of his favorite colors.
Here's the dining room all decorated and food on the table. The plan was for us to have lunch, presents, and then go ice skating. The ice skating didn't happen since he felt sick but I'm happy to report everything else went according to plan.
But how do you surprise someone who doesn't like being surprised? There was a good chance that if this didn't go well, he'd get mad and run to his room. Knowing the guys would come in from the garage and through the laundry room, I left a little paper trail to lead the Spencinator to the festivities.
Once he made his way into the dining room, we'd give him a few second to see us and we'd say "surprise".
I was hoping that by not catching him totally off guard that he'd have some time to process what was going on and therefore not be mad. Oh, and it helped that the guest list was kept small. It was just me, his sisters, his aunt and his two grandmothers.
When I heard the guys enter the house, I held my breath. Would my plan work?
We were hiding out in the dining room when we heard the laundry door open and the Spencitator say, "Huh?" He had found the paper trail leading to the dining room.
He walked over and looked at us and the decorations, then we said, "surprise" and he smiled.
Yeah! It worked. I gave him a big hug and told him this was his surprise birthday party, like he requested.
He was all smiles about that.
Sweetie Pie couldn't wait to give him her presents and ran over to give it to him.
It's the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, #7, The Third Wheel. He has the other ones and really likes them. He reads them over and over, laughing out loud at the funny parts.
After lunch we sang "Happy Birthday" and he blew out the candles.
Then it was present time. His very cool aunt got him these Star Wars socks. They are men's sized socks since he has now outgrown kid's size socks and shoes.
By the way, the Spencinator and I now wear the same size shoe, and my foot's not small, so that's telling you how big his feet are. Here is a picture of us wearing each other's shoes. He's in the camouflage pants in case you can't tell us apart.
The Spencinator really enjoyed his party and all his gifts. He meticulously placed them on the stairs and posed for a picture. Thanks to everyone who helped make this day a success!
Thanks for stopping by,
Christa
