You might be wondering why I was away from blogging for so long. If you're a regular visitor, you might remember that I go on hiatus every January (December, too), due to the enormous time and effort that it takes to plan our son's birthday parties. Here is what we did last year.Well, since Kylen loves video games so much, and Mario in particular, we thought it would be great fun to have a Mario-themed party. We bought LOTS of Nintendo paraphanalia, decorated the walls of our unfinished basement to look like the classic Super Mario Brothers games, and I even created a PC program, to keep track of the kids' scores, during the party games. Here are some pictures, to give you an idea of what it was like. Enjoy!
What do you get when you cross a computer nerd with a video game character? You got it! That's me, as Luigi, Mario's skittish taller brother. I'm sitting in a corner of our basement, operating the scorekeeping program I wrote. A projector displayed the status on a handmade screen.
Here is what much of our basement looked like. The walls were decorated with rolls of plastic tablecovers and computer printouts of Nintendo characters. Hey, when the images you find on the internet are 2000x3000, even a full-size print on an inkjet looks professional!The Chain Chomp on the left side of your screen is a 3-foot Big-Uns ball, covered with two yard trash bags. The teeth and eyes were cut out of printer sticker sheets. I also recorded some dog barks on a CD and hid the player behind the Chomp, for added realism.
In the back, you can see a Sandbag, which is, in fact, a real punching bag that we've had for years, covered in a large sheet of white craft foam.
This picture really does NOT do the cake enough justice. Although we joked that we had made it, our co-op's lead organizer made it for us. Isn't she talented??? She has her own cake-decorating business, so if you live in the Inland Northwest, we HIGHLY recommend her!The original post had a YouTube video, but Farrah reminded me that some parents are really sensitive about how visible they are on the internet, so I took it down. If you were at the party and would like to see the video, please e-mail me.
10 comments:
Wow. You went all out. That's pretty neat.
Larry
Looks like a lot of fun was had by all and fantastic memories were created!! Bravo for all your hard work, Mom and Dad!
Thanks for the kind words, Greg!
Blessings,
Karen :o)
Dude, Wow. Backwards is still woW.
Awesome! Man, I would have loved to come that party!!
You guys seem like you're a blast to be with. How fun!
GGM
Thankfully, we only do this once a year! And yet, the amount of work we put into this one would seem more worthwhile, if we tried redoing the party, for charitable causes, such as the local Gospel Mission. We're praying about it and leaving the walls up, just in case! LOL!
woooow!This looks so awesome, great work Greg! haha.
Thanks for the compliment, Dan! But sometimes I wonder, "What if we spent THIS much effort furthering His Kingdom?" It's what made me think of maybe using this as a ministry to disadvantaged children. We're praying about it. He has given us so many talents, and we want to be good stewards. :)
This post brought back great memories of birthday parties past - this year my children turned 21 and 17 so it feels they are VERY grown-up but we were reminiscing with them about Indiana Jones birthday parties and American Girl doll parties and Star Wars parties and YMCA pool parties, etc, etc. Nice work on the Mario theme!
Wow! I'm so jealous. Do you guys want to be my parents for my next birthday, eh? - Eric S
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