Why? Because I am brave enough to host a sleepover party for half a dozen 8 to 10 year olds, two years in a row!

Actually, I've done a LOT of boy's birthday parties - I mean, do the math. 12 for my stepson (he moved in with his Mom when we was 12), 19 for my middle son, and now 10 for Blake, that is 41 boy's birthday parties - wow!

We've done it all - bowling parties, skating parties, birthdays at McDonalds, the movies, a couple of pirate parties (those were really fun, but a lot of work) and really, these sleepover parties aren't too bad. They're cheap enough and fairly easy to do.

We ended up with 5 boys and they really had a great time. They spent a lot of time in the backyard playing war games with all the plastic swords, Nerf guns and lightsabers. We had bought Blake a sort of tetherball game and they played with that. Then we brought them in and fed them some spaghetti and meatballs. They were pretty loud and rowdy, but fairly well behaved. Then they spent the next couple of hours playing Guitar Hero and running my husbands 30 year old Hot Wheels set up and down the stairs. I'll tell you, we've gotten a lot of mileage out of that set. Matt and his friends did exactly the same thing on his 15th birthday party. I was so worried about his first "grown-up" boy/girl party and they spent half the night playing with the darned Hot Wheels.

After Hot Wheels, we had the big highlight of the evening, flashlight tag at the park. I'll tell you, that is such a simple thing, but kids of all ages really get a big kick out of it. Whenever I needed a quick and easy bribe for Blake to do his chores or homework, all I had to do was offer him a flashlight walk around the block and he would do just about anything.

Anyway, at the park, the weirdest thing happened. It was dark when we got there - about 10:00 and there was a group of teenagers who were just finishing up a soccer game. I was behind the kids so I didn't see what started it, but I catch up to them and here are my five boys rolling around on the ground wrestling with a couple of the teenaged boys - complete, total strangers. And they were all laughing and having the best time. The boys would tackle each other and roll around on the ground and wrestling around like a bunch of puppies. Then they found out it was Blake's birthday, so they all sang Happy Birthday to him. What nice kids!

After flashlight tag, we brought the kids home, fed them some cake and ice cream and set them up with the movie - The Simpsons Movie. It got over right at midnight, so I made a deal with them that if I let them stay up until then, they would go right to sleep and they did - pretty much. I figured by then, they'd be tired out enough to sleep anyway and I guess they did because we didn't hear from them again until morning. I thought it was actually a lot of fun and the boys really seemed to have a great time.