Grayson's birthday party

It is a lot easier to do a party AFTER the holidays, than DURING the holidays. So, here we are in January and we finally got around to a party for our 7 year old son. We filled up our 10 passenger van with kids (most of them boys!) and we filled up our 8 passenger SUV (again, mostly boys- a very rare occasion for us, as we usually have ALL girls and ONE boy- Gray loved having all those boys around). Then we headed to Fresno, where we met up with more of Grayson's friends from school and some friends from church. We rented out a local bounce house arena. The kids had a BLAST!! The adults got involved in the fun and had a blast, also. It was nice to not have to stress during the holidays to get his party done. He picked out a chocolate soccer cake, only one cake at this party! Olivia loved every minute of the bouncing. She could race through every obstacle course and do it on her own. Cami was having a ton of fun and whenever she saw the camera pointed at her, she would automatically stop where she was and pose for the camera. Gloria was allowed to invite 2 friends, the girls had fun racing down slides and through courses. Grayson was in HEAVEN. There were so many boys there. He was able to rough house and wrestle and jump and race with tons of other boys. It was so much fun for him. We were able to pick up a lot of his friends in our vehicles to help out other parents so they wouldn't have to drive so far to get kids to the party. We had the arena all to ourselves, doors shut and so we were comfortable taking that many kids without their parents. The kids were all very well behaved and we loved having all of his friends there! Afterwards we brought 14 kids to our house for a massive play date.... so much for having a party at another location to keep all the mess for someone else to clean up, but how could I deny the birthday boy the opportunity to have his friends come over? They opened up his gifts and played and played and played. It was a lot of fun, a very different dynamic from the normal "girly" dynamic we have here. The girls enjoyed the different dynamic, also, and got involved in all the swords and nerf guns and transformers, helicopters and cars. It was a great day.