Owen's Volcano Party!

 For Owen's 7th Birthday we decided to do things a bit differently and have the party in the garage. The funny thing is that kids get bigger! The people we invite to parties are all the same people except their children just keep growing. Plus I let Owen invite 4 friends from school so to make a long story short I knew that we would need the extra room to move around.  

I made this sign for Owen with my My Memories program.

On the gift table are also the gift bags for the kids. I tried to make them look like you guessed it...volcanoes!

Inside each bag was a package of mint mentos so they could do the whole Diet Coke/Mentos explosion at home, Pop Rocks and instructions for their volcano. 

I asked Michael to take care of cleaning up the garage. I knew since we were using it for extra party space that we needed to hide all the kids riding toys. I just asked him to stack them up and cover them with his painting tarps, but then I came out and saw this! When my mom bought me my new IKEA curtains we took the old 1975 original to the house curtains and just put them in a box in the garage. Michael had the genius idea to use some wire cable and hang them up as a partition. It looked SO nice!   

This is what the rest of the party prep looked like....it was science experiment! 

On the day of the party Uncle Ry and Aunt Stephie came early to help set up the snacks. 

This was the main part of our snacks....chocolate! Melted chocolate! More on that later! 

The party guest started arriving...

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family that love Owen and want to party with us. 

Bill and Christina even drove 45 minutes from Graham with their 3 young kiddos to hang out with us. We are blessed! 

Before we officially started the party the kids were all outside playing...who cares if it's cold! Once we got everyone gathered in the living room we prayed for the food and then went over etiquette on how to eat the melted chocolate.  

Ryan and Steph have a chocolate fountain that I thought went great with the volcano theme. Aunt Stephie actually ended up being the chocolate server to help make things easier. 

Three out of the four friends that Owen invited from school were able to come. It was fun seeing Owen interact with friends that he sees everyday. 

It was also so nice to have so many places for everyone to sit! 

After snack time we moved onto the coloring contest. I found a volcano image online and had it printed at Office Depot that morning. All the kids did great, but the 3 judges concluded that camera...the boy in front on the left did the best work. He got a book about dinosaurs and an activity coloring book too. 

After the contest we moved onto the science experiment I had prepared for earlier. What I didn't take a picture of was the 10 batches of salt dough I made during the Seahawks game on Saturday. The dough was so for the kids so they could each cover their water bottle to make their own volcano. 

The kids were working really hard to get the dough spread out to completely cover the water bottle. 

Then I went around with a measure cup of vinegar. Each of the kids got to see their volcano erupt! Even though there were over 15 volcanoes it still was fun to watch each one. The kids really enjoyed it which made all the prep work totally worth it. 

All those volcanoes drying....all the kids got to take theirs home so they could erupt over and over again. 

While the kids were working on their volcanoes Ga-Ga was in the kitchen put the "lava" on the volcano cakes. 

The funny thing is I worked and worked at making this party so fun and sticking with the volcano theme that I didn't think of one basic thing that's pretty important to birthday parties. Candles! Poor Owen had to blow out our barbecue lighter. He doesn't look too bummed though! 

I think that Ella and Kendra spent most of the time with each other. I love these cute girls! 

Zeke loves being with his Pa, or as he calls him "Ba"!

When it was time for presents Owen was so cute...he asked before each present if it okay to open it. 

Owen was of course spoiled! Miss Rachael got him these cool Superman jammies. 

Ga-Ga & Pa got Owen $30 one dollar bills. It was fun how they fell out of the card. The kids got a kick out of that! 

In addition to that he got, Nerf Gun, Legos, Hot Wheels track, Disney Apples to Apples, 1st grade workbooks, I Can Read books, Sonic Car City, Drawing Art Book, Candy, Gift Cards to Toys R Us, Home Depot & Lowe's.

I know the last couple things might seen funny for a 7 year old, but we had let some friends know that it might be nice to have some money that would go towards building the kids tree house. 

Micah went one step further and built this awesome tree house night light that held the gift card to Lowe's. It's amazing and the kids love it! 

Seriously it's so cool! And he built it the night before the party! 

Here's everyone at the party minus Owen's school friends. 

Later on that night Owen got his new jammies on and of course wanted to play with everything he got! 

I'd say his birthday was a complete success! 

Thank you to everyone who helped make Owen's 7th birthday so special!