Zach requested a Cars 2 party this year. He got to go see the movie in the theater with Cal a few weeks earlier, so he has been pretty excited about Lightening McQueen and Francesco (the fast race cars). Anyone who has spent much time with him knows he loves to race, that he is fast, and that he likes to talk about being so fast. I initially intended that it wouldn't be a very big party, but we ended up inviting 8 friends and all 8 made it, plus a couple of siblings. We had Kira, Skyler, Ethan, Preston, Raquelle, Tom, Elissa, and Hannah. We were happy to have everyone and grateful for so many friends, but I quickly realized it was a lot of kids! It was wild and fun!
Cal made these "cars" out of boxes for the kids to run races in. He spray painted them to be similar to cars from the movie. Left to right is Guido, Holley Shiftwell, Finn McMissile, Francesco, and Lightening McQueen. We only had 5 box cars, but the kids did really well taking turns and trading them around.
They ran races and played red light green light. They ran back and forth across our yard at least 20 times. Of course it was a record hot day, so the kids were hot and sweaty! We didn't plan too much, and didn't plan on serving any food but cake and ice cream. But they finished their races and were all hungry. So we hurried and sliced up some apples and cheese and got some pretzels and water out.
After snacks we did cake. Here is cake #2, a little messed up from the plastic wrap I covered it with overnight. Oh well. The kids all begged for pieces with the pretzel M&M's.
Singing Happy Birthday
After cake we opened presents. I didn't get any pictures as I was frantically trying to see who got him what. It was a bit of a free for all as the kids all wanted Zach to open up their present, and quite a few ended up opening up the present they had brought. Oh, the excitement!
Then came the chaos!! Somehow the kids all made their way inside, and then down to the basement. I can't blame them. It was so hot outside! But I certainly did not intend for them to end up inside. In record time, most of our toys were out and being played with. It was CRAZY. I was totally overwhelmed by the chaos, decided not to fight it, and just hoped no one got hurt or things didn't get broken. In reality there wasn't actually that much extra time for them to play inside, but it was just so wild. Next year we are going to have to do something smaller... But the kids all seemed to have a great time and hopefully we wore them out properly so they slept well that night!
