One Great Party!

How can a bucket of ping pong balls, pantyhose, spaghetti noodles, and ding dongs add up to a good time?  A "Minute to Win It" Birthday party of course!  We're home from Noah's 11th birthday and had such a blast.  I'm plum wore out but I think mostly it's from laughing so hard!  (We should've handed out Depends as party favors!)

Most people there had never seen the game show before; however, I think they'll all be regular viewers now.  The concept is so simple and the majority of the games we played required items you have around the house.  Each contest is one minute long and if the kid completed it successfully, they got to put a ticket in the prize bucket.  After each round a ticket was drawn and the winner got to dig in a prize bucket for a treat.  At the end, all the tickets were placed back in the hat for a grand prize winner.  I think it worked out so that nearly every kid won a prize.

The games are not something you'd ever really do in real life but are so simple you wonder why you haven't.  Our first game was "Junk in the Trunk" because I knew it would get everyone laughing and excited.  A Kleenex box was attached to a belt and filled with 8 ping pong balls.  When the timer started, each kid would have to shake, jiggle, and twist hoping to pop out each ball before the minute was up.  I don't know how we managed to even get photos as everyone was doubled over in laughter.  It's one sure way to get a white boy to dance!

Another game was called "Chocolate Unicorn" and required the kids to stack 7 ding dongs on their forehead within the minute time frame.  This was a difficult one as either we got a dud box or ding dongs are naturally misshapen.  It was fun to watch them attempt it so seriously though.

It was neat that there seemed to be a different "expert" for each game, as nobody was the ultimate player and all kids got their turn of losing and winning a few.

We set the party for two hours, and after twenty minutes into the game, I could tell it should've been longer.  We ended up skipping one of the games just to get through the rest of the party for anyone who had to leave on time.  After the cake and presents, and one of the games we skipped just to have time to open/eat, some of the adults took their try at a few games.  You know we were itching to during the entire party anyway!



Aunt Becky playing "This Blows!"



Wendy shaking it in "Junk"

even I played...and ended up the "elephant march" champ!

It was non-stop, rib splitting, hooting and hollering fun and I think one birthday party this 11 year old will not soon forget  The only problem now is figuring out how to top it next year!

*If you've arrived from paperperfection, welcome.  For templates, supplies or materials, please go back and visit pp's site. For game ideas, visit NBC and search for "MTWI".  This is just an example of what a MTWI party might be like.  Thanks for stopping by....hope you'll stay and visit awhile!

Party Planning

I should've grown up to be a party planner, or a travel agent (another post, another day).  While I don't love cleaning before or after hosting a party, I love the planning stage!  My favorite to plan are kid's birthday parties and since Noah's is just around the corner I've been working away.

He's had many different parties through the years, some at home, some elsewhere, but all involve some type of theme and yummy food.  One year, he had a sundae party, with a huge topping bar for the kids to dig into.  Last year he had a "Soup-er" party with a buffet of all our favorite soups and we repeated a favorite theme of "Game Day" from a couple years prior.  For the Game Day party, each table held a different board game, video games were set up in the back, and yard games in another room.  It was game day central and it was so much fun, it sparked our annual family game day we try to do at least once a year now.

This year, the theme will be "Minute 2 Win It" from the popular game show.  If you've never seen it, the basic idea is to complete a series of contests in one minute or less, each getting harder than the last.  The neat thing is that every task can be recreated at home with every day items like wrapping paper tubes, ping pong balls or a deck of cards.  I've been downloading some of the best (and funniest) contests and will display them on the wall with a projector at the party.  When a kid completes the challenge successfully, their name will go in the hat and we'll draw for prizes.

I'm so excited that I find myself counting down the days until his party.  The hard part I'm having is figuring how I'll play game show host, IT tech lady, and juggle taking photos but I guess that's what my family is for!  Whatever hat I end up wearing that day, I know I'll wear a smile upon my face because Noah gets to have a special day - and I hope enjoying every "minute" of it!