Originally Posted By momof4boys William's birthday party is tomorrow afternoon. The plan was for 7 of his friends to come over around 4:00 pm, go to mini golf then back to our house to swim, water balloons, play outside and then pizza and stay the night. I was going to try and get them to bed fairly early because they are all going to church with us in the morning. But... you guessed it. The forcast is for rain, rain and more rain. I can't reschedule because this is the only weekend we don't have baseball for a very long time. I am trying to come up with alternative plans to entertain the boys. We live in a small town, so our options are limited. There is a movie theater 15 miles away but no movies showing that they want to see. The bowling alley has league bowling going on. Any ideas for fun things to do inside with 9 boys besides video games and renting movies? Any fun group games? We have some board games- twister, Apples to Apples and Disney SceneIt come to mind ( but my boys point out that they will dominate at Disney SceneIt). These are very active boys and I have visions of either me always getting on them so they don't tear up the house, or them all divided into different rooms playing video/computer games ( I don't know, maybe that would be okay- but that doesn't seem like a party to me.) Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Originally Posted By LadyKluck You could teach them all how to play Texas Hold 'Em and have a kiddie tournament (use food like candy or cookies for "chips", have prizes, etc.)! Depending on the parents , I don't know if teaching the kids to play poker is something they would allow, but it does require a lot of "indoors" time!
Originally Posted By Ursula Make your own pizza stations Skill games that require hand-eye coordination, like tossing things into other things, like clothespins into small-necked jars or pennies into flat dishes. Video-game contests that are timed and whoever gets the most points/furthest in the game gets a prize. Mad-libs Grossest drink: put out different kinds of sodas and juice and see who can make the worst color and who drinks it fastest
Originally Posted By LadyKluck >>Grossest drink: put out different kinds of sodas and juice and see who can make the worst color and who drinks it fastest<< Immediately following: Burping contest!
Originally Posted By alexbook >>>>Grossest drink: put out different kinds of sodas and juice and see who can make the worst color and who drinks it fastest<< Immediately following: Burping contest!<< I was going to suggest pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, but that sounds like way more fun.
Originally Posted By Ursula Find regular stuff around your kitchen. Put them in bowls. Blindfold each boy and have them stick their hand in and they have to guess what it is. Possible choices: flour and water mixed up, smooshed up watermelons and other fruits, peeled soft boiled eggs, jelly, peanut butter, squooshed crackers, salami, etc. A prize goes to the boy with the most correct guess.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad ^^^-- yes and put luke warm speghetti in one and tell them its brains. They did this to us just after 9/11 on Halloween night at the Grand Californian when trick-or-treating...it was trick and hilarious!!!
Originally Posted By LadyKluck Blue mashed pototaoes is another good one to use (just food coloring in regular ol mashed potatoes) because after they guess its potatoes and they are able to see it - the gross out effect is still there because of the color! Grapes in Jell-o is another one we used all the time.
Originally Posted By 999HAUNTS Do you have a shopping mall nearby? If so, place a fast call to the management and tell them your situation. I'm sure they would allow your boys to have a scavenger hunt! Make a list of little things like: Rubber band, music advertisement, paper bag, paper clip, coupon, etc and give out a prize to who has the most items. If you base it two teams instead of individuals, the losing team has to serve lunch and drinks to the winning team. It's lots of fun!!
Originally Posted By DlandJB Great stuff here. Especially like Ursula's #3 post ideas. The movie "Hoot" opens today and I know both my kids loved the book and it is PG. Maybe it is playing somewhere in your 15 mile radius? Is it warm enough where you are that they could still go outside in the rain and play with the water balloons (assuming no thunderstorms)? So they will get just as wet anyway. Do you have a video camera? Could the boys be tasked with creating their own movie that you could film for them? They could also do short films based on topics they pull out of a bowl. Something like Charades too. Could you ask the parents to bring them over just a little later than 4 p.m. if it rains? My heart is with you! Good luck
Originally Posted By momof4boys Thank you everybody for all the great ideas! I am planning if there is no lightning or thunder letting them still have the water balloon fight. That is if the ground isn't too squishy that they would tear up the back yard. I ran the ideas past William- well, most of them. I left out the food fight! He loves the idea of Texas Hold'em or black jack. I think the other parents would be okay with it- I'm the most conservative out of the group. That also made me think of Bunko. Anything with prizes and they are happy! I like the scavenger hunt idea- but no indoor mall here. If I have time tomorrow, I will try to get together the foods together for them to feel. Thank you everybody for all the great ideas. Keep them coming if you have any more!
Originally Posted By crazyformickey My son's birthday is in June and about 4 years ago we planned a water park birthday and you guessed it rain, I called park district in my area and they had a indoor pool with sprayers and mini slides. It didn't cost too much and they had a great time.
Originally Posted By momof4boys It is times like this that I wish we lived in a larger town and had more options. It is ironic, we have been under a burn ban for many months because of lack of rain and now it won't stop raining. Any other time I would be thrilled. Today the high is in the 60's and it was in the 90's in December!
Originally Posted By Ursula Well, how was the party and what did you end up doing???? We're just dying to know!
Originally Posted By momof4boys Thank you all for all the great suggestions! The boys got here and it wasn't raining but it was very cool- 60 degrees and overcast. The boys were out on the trampoline and they asked, " Can we swim?" I told them, " It is freezing." They looked at me like I was crazy and said, " Yeah, but can we swim?" Sure. So they swam and did water balloons. Then they were all freezing-DUH!- so they came in and changed clothes and I ordered pizza. We opened presents until the pizza got here. Then we played Bunco and Texas Hold'Em. I had wrapped prizes ( each worth $1 or less) in brown paper bags. You should have seen how excited they got about cheapo prizes! They went back outside to finish some wrestling tournament they were having on the trampoline. It was very chilly out and thanks to the rain we were no longer under a burn ban so I built a fire in the fire pit and we made s'mores. They came inside and we played Apples to Apples and Imaginiff ( both great board games). Then they went back outside for a game of Cops and Robbers. By this time, it was nearly midnight and I had promised the parents they wouldn't stay up " too late" since they all were going to church in the morning. I had the "feeling foods" to touch all prepared and we never even had time to get to them! We were lucky that it never rained- it just stayed drizzly, overcast and cold! About 12:30, the boys laid down and wathced Hoodwinked and fell asleep. We all had such a great time- thank you so much again for all the ideas. Even though we didn't get to all of them, it sure relieved my stress to have things lined up. I think actually the change of weather was a good thing- if it had been warm and sunny, they just would have swam the entire time, and the games were SO much fun!
