More With the Birthdays...

Last night, we had B's birthday party at the house. Neve rmind the fact that he turned 7 back at the beginning of January. Between the end of Christmas, New Years, and my starting a new job, we just didn't get the party planned until now. Slacker parents? Why yes!

Several months ago, J made the comment that maybe we could do a 'home theater' thing upstairs for B's birthday, and he could have a bunch of friends over to watch a movie and have cake, etc. That idea stuck, so J spent the last week setting up our upstairs "playroom" to be a theater for kiddos.

This is the 'screen' for the movie. It is quite possibly the only sheet I have ever / will ever iron in my life. Those things are a PAIN.

Here we have the kid-friendly set up. Lots of beanbags, soft floor, and sofa room for them to hang out and watch the movie.

 The main attraction - a projector we borrowed from a friend for the movie. Note the presence of lots of speakers. The box in the background is a new subwoofer. Let's just say there was some SERIOUS base action going on.

Another view. The red thing on the right side of the screen? That is affectionately known as the BART in our house. For the adults out there, that stands for Big Ass Red Thing. It was large enough last night to accomodate at least 4 little ones very comfortable. J and I have both spent many nights on it when the kiddos were still in cribs and we were trying to get them to sleep. It's very comfy and amorphous and I keep trying to get rid of it, but I'm too sentimental about it, apparently.

Instead of the traditional goody bags, we did balloons with candy bars tied to the bottom to keep the balloons from floating away. We've actually found this works just fine and doesn't make any parents hate us for giving away loud noisemakers...

So the party itself went ok. Apparently 10 kiddos between the ages of 5-9 don't have much in the way of an attention span. I think B was the only one who watched the movie all the way through. It seems like everyone had a good time, though. And it's over, thank goodness. J and I tested out the sound system last night with Moulin Rouge...I'm thinking our next large purchase might have to be a projector.