Army Party

My little man is SIX! Six. I wanted him to be five for just a bit longer. Birthdays sure are happy-sad events for me. 

We celebrated with an Army party.  It was bound to happen - we almost had one last year. But I'm so pleased Little One changed his mind about it, because this year we could be outdoors (Pretoria has a summer rainfall) and the landscape was perfect for all the outdoor activities.

At 14h00 on Saturday afternoon, 13 little soldiers descended upon our home, all dressed up with their firearms. :)

The afternoon looked something like this...

"Report for Duty" followed by an "Obstacle course/Basic training". A simple course where the boys were divided into two teams. They had to carry certain items through the course, which involved climbing, crawling and hopping over rocks. The teams were timed and the fastest team won the challenge. The items carried were half-filled water bottles (the big ones), a rope and a cardboard box with pretend supplies. 

Then we had "Search and Rescue", where the soldiers had to look for army guys that were missing in action - small plastic army men that I hid in the field.

Then it was "Mess Hall", when we sang to the birthday boy and also handed out party packets. The awesome tank cake was baked by Little One's very special teacher.

The last activity of the day was "Target Practice". We purchased a very inexpensive BB gun and my husband, who played Sergeant Major for the afternoon, oversaw this one closely. We printed out sufficient targets so that each soldier could take home his target with him. A nice keepsake of how well he shot on the day.

A great target to print out can be found here. 

After that it was free play! 

Another fun idea was to make and fly paper aeroplanes, 

but we just didn't get around to it.

 An easy to make sweet for the party were these Marshmallow Treats. 

Ingredients:

30 grams - butter or margarine

60 grams - marshmallows  

70 grams - Rice Crispies (I used Coco Pops)

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Add the marshmallows and stir over a low heat until melted. 

Remove from the heat, add the Rice Crispies and mix together until well coated.

Press into a tray and cut when cool OR put the mixture into cupcake holders.

That's it!

Another birthday and party over. Big One has had eleven parties (he didn't have one this year) and Little One six - seventeen parties! - wonder if that makes me a party pro?

Think it makes me a good Mommy ;). 

Till next time.