Mr. Boy's Minecraft Party

Mr. Boy is going to kill me with these themes he keeps throwing at me.  Last year he wanted an Angry Birds party, but after I used my mad negotiating skills I convinced him to do an Army Party.   It was awesome, if I do say so myself.

For the last five months Mr. Boy  has had one thing on his mind, which is Minecraft.  He was adamant he wanted a Minecraft party.  We sat down and he described the perfect party.   "We recreate the game in the backyard and my friends can dig and mine for diamonds and iron ore. Then we have four game trucks show up and we play Minecraft.   Next we have Cake Boss deliver a Minecraft themed cake,  will he deliver one to California?"

Oh, Mr. Boy, that sounds lovely, but it's a little out of my budget.  So I turned to my very favorite friend Pinterest and she delivered a wealth of party ideas. Some of these folks are crazy, and they must mortgage the farm to fund these parties, but I found a ton of good ideas.

 I barely knew what Minecraft was when I started, other than it's a video game with terrible graphics.  The only redeeming quality is that Mr. Boy will do anything to be able to play Minecraft and I have used it as a bribe many times to get things done.  

I always love to take a photo of the birthday boy with each guests to send with the thank you note.   We used an old frame with some felt squares in the background  to give it a Minecraft feel and I had props for the kids to use.  I made that "Creeper Party Hat" by gluing some felt and a pom pom onto it.  Mr. Boy hated it and thought he looked like a dork, but I thought it was awesome!  Plus it showed off my clever crafting skills, which I mean.... really... isn't that what throwing a party is all about? *insert tongue in cheek*

I'm not going to lie, this party had some hit and misses.  Ten year old boys are a tough crowd.

Miss: When the kids arrived they decorated "drink koozies" by drawing something "Minecrafty."  It was kind of lame, I wouldn't do it again.    

 Hit: The next activity was decorating "Minecraft Notebooks" with stickers that I made.  It was a pain in the rear, printing all the stuff on sticker paper and cutting it out.  I swear I spent a couple nights hanging out with the TV and my paper cutter, cutting until my arm went numb.   I had stumbled on this lady's website that had all these awesome files to download for the stickers.   . 

Miss:   We played "Pin the Pickaxe on Steve". Mr. Boy drew this awesome Steve and even though the kids were blindfolded they all pretty much were able to figure out where the pickaxe should go.   I think they officially have aged out of this game. 

 

Hit: Swimming after the games and activities, always a hit.  Even better, having Aunt Cinnamon come and lifeguard!  She provides that extra peace of mind, especially when there is a gaggle of ten year old boys all jumping around in the pool. 

Other Hits:  When Mr. Boy realized I would be in charge of the cake, he was leary, and he has every right to be.  We opted for Minecraft inspired Rice Krispy Squares.   A layer of "grass" (really just a layer of green Rice Krispies) and then the dirt, iron ore, or whatever it is under grass in that crazy Minecraft game. No one seemed to miss the cake and ice cream. 

The kids loved the Creeper Juice, it was simply Gatorade with a little duct tape and a creeper face. 

The Party Favors were little boxes of TNT, which was filled with licorice.  The boxes are the 3x3x3 inch size from Papermart.

We had a tough time trying to come up with the favor bags, well, really, it was all me being indecisive,  Mr. Boy had no opinion.  I originally wanted to do these, but after cutting out 1,000,000 stickers, I was out of steam.

 So, in the end, I went with simple and no one seemed to care, which is what I realized is the best thing about 10 year old boys.   

They are pretty stoked with just getting to hang out, eat junk food, and goof around with their friends.