It was a wonderful (and crazy) weekend. Our youngest, Luke, turned nine on the 7th. (Gosh! Time flies!) So because our older son, Nicholas, got to have a similar birthday party a couple years back, we celebrated with a big sleepover this past Friday. Luke had eight of his friends over from 6 PM on Friday night to 10 AM the next day. And I have to say I'm super glad we had some organized games/activities. I think they helped control energy levels. Here in Minnesota you can't just send kiddos outside at this time of year when they are getting wild.

We had a Minecraft-themed party so we started the evening by feeding the boys pizza and a "Minecraft" supper. The table was laid out with food that you would find in the Minecraft game. And by the way…I pretty much got all my ideas for this party from Pinterest and things that I purchased from Amazon.

• The creeper wall decor
• The labels for food
• The pixelated faces activity
• The invites we used
• Blue diamonds party favors
• Boxes for the diamonds – a Stampin' Up! product
• Minecraft surprise toys
• Tablecloth
• Skintones construction paper
• Minecraft Bingo
• Shoot the Creeper game
• Creeper Cups idea

Then we went downstairs to my classroom to make giant pixelated self-portraits. The kids glued squares of colored construction paper down onto a big square of chipboard (obtained from all those used up glimmer paper and specialty designer paper packs) to create their giant faces.

After that the boys teamed up and we played "partner bingo." I got a wonderful Minecraft Bingo game from one of the sites I found on Pinterest, and this game was probably the biggest hit of the party. One of Luke's friends at the party is still in preschool and can't read, so partner bingo was the best way to handle running this. Teammates helped each other, and if one got a bingo then they both won, and each got to pick a piece of candy from the bucket.

When bingo time was over, we evened it out so that everyone got the same amount of candy. The kids put their candy (that they hadn't eaten yet) into their bags along with their 25 blue diamonds (markers for the bingo game and one of their party favors). I then let them open up their mystery Minecraft toy inside their bag. They were so enthralled with all their goodies that announcing cake and ice cream time didn't even phase them!

We eventually got them upstairs to sing Happy Birthday, eat cake & ice cream and watch Luke open his presents.

Then came the last game…shooting the creeper with the Nerf gun. Oh boy! They had fun! And I think each person knocked the creeper over at least once.

We ended the evening with a movie – Minions. And then they all went to "sleep." I'm not sure when the last kiddo fell asleep or when the noises ended since my husband was the one who slept in the basement with the kids (bless his heart).

The next morning was breakfast and play time. The last child left around 10:15, and then family started showing up at 10:30. So we had only about 15 minutes of transition time! LOL.

So Luke not only had a super-duper fun kid party, but the fun continued into this next day with both the Jandro side and the Tessman side filling our house. AND this year neither weather nor illness hindered anyone from coming. So it was a very festive party – lots of people, lots of food, lots of fun.

And Luke loved it all.