Daniel's 6th Birthday Party

I am very happy to report that we all survived Daniel's 6th birthday party! Daniel's real birthday is not until Thursday, but due to logistics, we held his party this afternoon at Gymnastics Plus. What Gymnastics Plus lacks in homeyness, it more than makes up for in pure ease and convenience. 

Gymnastics Plus parties are very nicely structured so that there are 50 minutes for the kids to play on the gymnastics floor, followed by 45 minutes for the party upstairs. They have a rule that parents cannot be out on the gymnastics floor during birthday parties, which is awesome because there is zero guilt about sitting back and letting the very professional gymnastics staff keep control over things.

These are views from the second-floor viewing areas.

Another example of how nice it was to have help - the gymnastics people got all of the kids' shoes organized for them to put back on when they finished playing. I would have NEVER thought to do that and instead would have spent 23 minutes trying to get everyone in order.

The whole gang! Parents could come out on the floor at the end to take pictures. We are missing Penny, who was in the restroom the whole time, but everyone else is here. :)

The second half was the "party" with cake, presents, and chaos. Daniel had a Sponge Bob cake, which Will ordered from the Hy-Vee bakery. Our friend Ryan is the bakery manager there so it is always fun to see what they come up with.

Parents can set up the party area while the kids are playing on the gymnastics floor. By parents, this means "Will," who also did all of the shopping for party supplies. Yay, Will!

The gymnastics people set up this whole table with presents from our super generous friends, complete with a pad of paper and a pen to record things. Maybe I need to hire the gymnastics staff to come help organize my life...

Getting ready for cake! I think this is the first party ever where we have had only cake and juice, with no pizza or any other food. I think we were after Laziest Party Ever and the cake-only theme fit perfectly into this goal.

Lighting the candles! Annika has certainly come a long way in her fear of fire given that she was sitting next to Daniel, but it is still definitely not her favorite thing.

Making a wish! The candles were ones that re-lit several times but Will finally got them extinguished with some ice.

Getting ready to eat! Daniel invited several of Annika's friends, too, who hung together in a 4th Grade Kid Contingency.

Cake!

And party hats! I think most of the kids took them off in fairly short order.

We had enough cake that we let anyone have a second piece who wanted it. Sorry, parents - with juice and multiple pieces of cake, your children might be a sugared-up mess!

Getting ready to open presents! We moved over the other half of the upstairs, which has a small bleacher area for kids to hang out on.

Opening presents! Thanks to Daniel's super generous friends, he has a crazy amount of loot and enough Legos to build an entire Lego City. Thank you, everyone!!

When it was time to wrap up, the gymnastics staff did all of the clean up and we were able to just load everyone up and go home. I would say that the party was a huge success! Although perhaps Daniel caught on to his parents' glee over his party choice, since he did say that next year, he would like to have his birthday party at our house. :) Happy Early 6th Birthday, Daniel! We had an awesome time celebrating wonderful you.