Birthday Boot Camp

My son wanted an Army party for his birthday this year. I don't think he knew what he was in for. We mailed invites on camo paper to his friends and labeled them all "private" and had their "top secret birthday mission inside". We also included some army tattoos. All of the boys were very excited. When they arrived they received dog tags & face paint. 1st they had to be properly outfitted. So, they had to hit the barracks (a tent with a pile of camo clothes that I bought at the salvation army). Then they had to do warm up exercises and if they fell out of line they had to drop and give me 7 (My son's new age). Then we made an obstacle coarse out of stuff we use throughout the year. PVC poles from Christmas lights, pool floats and wood we had from a previous project. When the kids were going through the coarse, the Dad's had fun shooting nerf guns at them for them to dodge. We ran clean up drills, army men rescue (like an egg hunt with army men) and marched up and down the street singing "I don't know if you've been told, Ethan's turning 7 years old". We served beef sticks, licorice, tangerines, chex mix and pretzels...all of my sons favorite grab and go snacks. For cupcakes, I made camo cupcakes by making choc and yellow cake batter. I split the yellow batter and tinted 1/2 green. Then I put a spoonful into each cupcake liner and tada...camo cake! Then we topped them off with choc frosting, crushed graham crackers and an army man. The kids loved them! For party favors, my son and I went to the local army recruiting office. This was a hit on so many levels. Not only was he excited to talk to a real army guy, he gave us pencils, stickers, and pins for all of the kids. My son was so happy about it he wrote a thank you note and we took it to them the next day. Everyone had so much fun. We kept the kids busy the entire time and they were tired and ready to go home by the end of the party. My son is still thanking me for such a fun party which makes it a perfect party to me.