Little Wigs in the Big City: T's Nerf War Party

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

T's Nerf War Party

It's basically a sunny paradise 360 days of the year so OF COURSE it decides to rain on Talmage's birthday weekend and foil our nerf war on the ball field. March can be such a fickle month weather-wise, but for some reason the revelation that it was actually, 100%, undeniably going to rain still surprised the heck out of me. Talmage was so afraid that we would have to cancel the party altogether, but do you really think a Wig would ever cancel a party?! Not a chance! Luckily when I had reserved the ball field at the church I also reserved the gymnasium just in case, and the latter definitely saved me. We had an obstacle course, target practice, games and a nerf battle in the gym and I can't imagine it could have been any better out on the field.

I tried to keep all the details super low key because 1) I knew the kids, mostly 8 and 9-year-old boys, wouldn't care about the froof and 2) if I kept the costs down on the little things I could bump the costs up on things I knew the kids would care about--nerf guns and ammo! We had pizza and gatorade, chips, cuties, carrots and cupcakes, all with themed names and all demolished in a matter of seconds (except for the carrots, haha!) I had grand plans to make a nerf gun cake but T was insistent that he wanted yellow cake with chocolate frosting and since that was about a trillion times easier I ran with it! The main expense of the party was the nerf guns, glasses, and ammo. Toys R Us was having a huge BOGO event a couple of months ago so I bought them out of this specific nerf gun. I was originally going to buy each kid a small one that had three darts, so this was a total steal because it was a way better gun for basically the same price. When guests started arriving I had them write their name on the side of their gun in sharpie and they were THRILLED that they got to keep them. A gun, a pair of glasses and ammo doubled as the equipment for the whole party and their favors.

The time passed quickly and the kids had a lot of fun running and screaming and shooting and playing. No, it didn't all go perfectly, we ended up stopping the free for all fight early and going back to target practice when a few kids were in tears after receiving painful close range shots (despite the rules and the whistles, eye roll), but as everyone was leaving all I heard were comments about how this was the best birthday party they had ever been to, so #winning!!! If I were to do this again I'd want to remember how much the kids LOVED the target practice; I thought it would be fun but had no idea they'd be fully entertained for hours.

As for the birthday boy, he was as thankful and gracious and energetic and joyful as ever. On our way home he was just gushing about how perfect his party was and then he said, "Mom, some people might say 'this was my best birthday ever' but they don't really remember all of them so it doesn't really count. But I remember ALL of my birthdays and they were all really, really good Mom...but this one really was THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!" He legitimately says that every single year and every single year I can't help but smile and feel grateful to be raising such a happy, easy, grateful kid.

I made these targets out of free boxes I got from a local store. A little spray paint, a little duct tape, a few toys already in their rooms and with a little help from my colored printer they became super awesome targets. T got to help me pick a few of his least favorite things for the guests to shoot at and grumpy cat, steak, soccer (he broke his leg last season) and Voldemort made the cut. It took quite a bit of effort but I think it's something he'll keep and use for some time. Even if not though, they loved it enough at the party that it was worth it!

The obstacle court consisted of going through two parachute tunnels, then crawling under the stringed up benches, then driving in a little tikes car over to these balloons. They could use their six darts to try and hit five balloons.

We had balloons hanging everywhere so that they could shoot at those if the other things were already in use.

My favorite part of the party was when James took off his sweatshirt and revealed the target shirt I had made for him. The kids thought it was the best to chase him around to shoot him and I was crying I was laughing so hard!!! He's such a good sport and I have no doubt that T will always remember this moment.