Josiah's 8th Birthday Party

On Friday night, we were SUPER excited to get to have Josiah's 8th birthday party at his karate dojo!! He had been looking forward to this for months!! Since we were going to be leaving for vacation the next morning, I was thrilled to be able to do a party somewhere OTHER than my house!! And because the price included EVERYTHING but the cake (and as many kids as we wanted), we just got to invite ALL Josiah's friends and then just show up and have fun!

Sensei was a BIT surprised at how many kids were there! :) Everyone was so excited - and so many of our friends have 3-4 kids....and no one wanted to be left out of a karate party! :)

They stood in a big circle so everyone could say their name before playing the first game. Callie and her sweet friend Anna were standing right next to Sensei - and they were LOVING every minute! Callie was SO excited about this party - she normally has to sit and watch the boys do karate, so for her to get to participate, she was over the moon!!

Sensei's daughter is a brown belt and a junior instructor - Danielle helped with the party and they were both amazing with the kids!!

Bryant came with his older brother & sister...it won't be long before he's out there on the floor too! (We were able to leave Caleb at home with a neighbor. The party started at 7 pm (bedtime!), so it was great that he was NOT there! :)

They had just finished playing a game where they had to run in place while throwing balls across the circle to each other and calling out their names. Callie and Anna somehow ended up in the middle of the circle - I guess 3 year olds don't really know how to jump "in place". :) They were oblivious!!

Here comes ninja jump - Sensei swings around this sock and the kids have to jump over it. If they get hit, they have to do 10 pushups! (Do you see Anna & Callie in the front of the picture? I'm telling you - they were absolutely a riot!!!)

All the kids got to break boards - a highlight for all! Here's Callie!

Noah

Raigan

Eric

Tyler

Joey

Kade

Asa

Will

Savannah

Luke

Abby

Anna

Ryan

Caleb

Aimee

Joey

Andrew

Noah

Tara

Abby

Bella

Hannah

Michael

James

Josiah

Graham

Jacob

Daniel

Part of the obstacle course - after all the kids completed one lap around, he'd add another stack of mats making it higher!

Yep, that's little Callie - at the top - not nervous at all! I think Sensei & Daddy were more nervous than she was!

The birthday cake! We ended up getting a marble cake with chocolate buttercream (Publix almost failed by not making a lemon cake...good thing they had a cool karate picture!)

They cut the cake with a REAL sword!

And when I say "CUT", I mean it! It was not a gentle "slice". They slammed that sword down on the cake - it was pretty impressive! :)

Then the kids got to do a pinata (isn't this the best party? Sensei did it all! Seriously - I just showed up with a cake - he provided all the sweaty games and fun!!) He's explaining the rules of the .....stick (I can't remember the official name of that thing...it does have an official karate name though!)

They listened attentively, and the kids were told it probably wouldn't make it through for everyone to get a hit....

Luke was the 6th kid to make a hit - and that was all it took! :)

The free for all ensued...

A very happy birthday boy! I loved seeing him SO enjoy himself with so many of his friends. When I first told him about this party and told him he could invite anyone he wanted (his whole class, our neighbors, his friends from church, etc), he said he didn't want to because he didn't want it to be crowded (he doesn't like crowded places). :) He's just like that - like me actually - would much prefer 2 or 3 close friends than a room full of people. But he decided that it would be fun to show all his friends the karate dojo and he absolutely loved it. Had so much fun. I loved watching all the kids enjoy it - so many different personalities and ages but they ALL had a great time. And frankly it was nice to just show up! :)