Mission Impossible

This is my nephew, Caleb, with his marshmallow gun.

Zach and his bomb pinata.

I know this is taken from behind the target but Emily looked so cute that I couldn't resist. She does this little pose every time she sees the camera pointed towards her!

Zach on his first of five attempts to blow out his birthday "fuse"! Zachary had such a fun 5th birthday party! It was a spy theme. Actually, that was just an excuse to have weapons. Boys will be boys! The whole theme was centered around these marshmallow guns that we made for each kid. The adults had as much fun as the kids! I got the idea from Laura Shannon, mentioned it to Jason then he took it an ran.

I asked for "help" with the marshmallow guns. He redesigned the guns so that they are high powered assault rifles. Who knew a miniature marshmallow in the head can hurt?

I asked him to build a small obstacle course in the backyard.

"What did you have in mind?", he asked.

"Oh, a few tunnels made from boxes we have in the attic, some two-by-fours on the ground for balance beams and maybe a target or two?", I answered.

My plan would have taken a total of ten minutes. Instead he spent at least 10 hours designing targets and planning an obstacle course. Our party had 15 targets of various shapes and sizes, including a deer, rabbit and turkey, a balance beam lifted up off the ground and rolls of carpet which the kids congregated on so they could shoot marshmallows on the roof. After seeing his firing range my plans to play musical chairs to the theme of Mission Impossible seemed pretty lame.

I made a cake that looked like bomb and spray painted a baseball pinata black to look like a bomb. We had quite a laugh when Zach couldn't blow out the "fuse". It took him about 5 breaths to blow out the long sparkling candles I put on top of the cake.

After all was said and done we ended up with two casualties (marshmallows in the face), a backyard white as snow, LOTS of sticky spots on the floor (Thank goodness we got rid of the carpet recently!) and one very happy 5 year old.

I sent the kids outside to play on their obstacle course so I could write this post.