More Than Meets the Eye

With every birthday comes a party.

Mason decided he wanted his to be more than meets the eye... or in other words, Transformers.

I am including a lot of pictures and detail about the party because I got a lot of my ideas from other blogs and I fully believe in passing along ideas.

The invitations.

I got the idea from a book and gave Scott instructions on how to turn it into Optimus Prime.

Mason was so excited to give all his buddies their invitations.

The Cake.

I kept it simple just doing a square cake and covering it with fondant. Cutting the autobot face out of fondant took some work, but then I just used Mason's toy transformers to decorate it.Mason requested that everyone dress up like transformers. So I made these transformer costumes out of craft foam and duck tape for each of the kids. A couple of the kids were hesitant to wear it at first, which was fine, but by the end everyone had their armor on and had a blast.

Mason's buddies Benson, Daniel, Gracie, Sky, Tanner, Mac, Kennedy, Mason, Cannon, and Cache all doing their best Transformer faces.

As the guests arrived we suited them up in their armor and played Autobot, Autobot, Decepticon... better known as duck, duck, goose. The kids really enjoyed it. We tried Optimus Prime says, but it didn't work as well.Then Scott got a phone call from Optimus Prime himself. He put it on Speaker Phone (he had previously recorded a message on his phone in his best Optimus voice) and Optimus told the kids that the Allspark was close by and Megatron was after it. He needed their help to find the Allspark and protect it from Megatron. They were to start their Autobot training immediately. I was amazed at how silent the kids were when they heard "Optimus Prime's" voice on the phone. I think most of them really thought he was calling. The best part was when Mason stood up and said, "Come on, let's go fight Megatron!" and ran up the stairs.

We began their training outside with two stations going at the same time that the kids rotated between.

The first station was target practice.

The second station was practice "Rolling Out". We drew a course on the driveway and carport with sidewalk chalk for the kids to follow on scooters.

An unintentional station was the "Autobot Base", as the kids started calling it. They all ended up there playing make-believe together at some point. It was perfect.

Then we did a little obstacle course that included climbing up and over our little slide, tossing a bean bag into a bucket, crawling through and tunnel, kicking a ball around the tree and through a goal, walking across the balance beam, and ending in the Autobot base.

After that we told them that Optimus Prime had called and said the Allspark was somewhere in the yard. They needed to find it before Megatron did and inside they would find something to help them defeat him.

They found the Allspark (cardboard box covered in foil), and inside was silly string for everyone. We gave them all a chance to figure out how to spray it and then..... MEGATRON CAME!!!

But they were ready for him.

And he was defeated!

Scott made sure to be a silly Megatron and not too scary. A couple kids were a little nervous but we pointed out quickly it was just Scott and then they were fine.

My prayers were answered and the rain held off until it was time to go inside for cake and icecream. (We were ready for a plan B obstacle course/Megatron battle inside the house, but it wouldn't have worked nearly as well).

Next, Mason opened presents.

He got so many fun things from his friends. He was genuinely so grateful for every single one of them.

His final present was a bike!

All the kids decided they wanted to ride bikes and scooters so we brought them all out and they rode around in the driveway and car port as the parents came to pick them up.

That was when this little girl woke up from her nap and joined the party. This is the only picture I got of her in her miniature costume.

The party was a complete success in my eyes. I think everyone had a lot of fun, but most importantly it was everything Mason wanted and more. Later that day he came up to me and in a very sweet voice said, "Thanks for a wonderful birthday party, mom." That made all the hard work worth it.