The Anderton Family: Jordan's 12th Birthday

Friday, February 25th, 2011 was a very long but eventful day. It started out at 6:30am with the whole family singing Happy Birthday to Jordan and bringing him breakfast in bed. He had "juicy fruit" (his favorite) a donut, and a white chocolate, Carmel steamer.

Then he got to open one present before school. It was a new pair of pants (he got 2 more pairs before the day was over because this kid did not own one pair without holes in the knees!) a Hollister shirt he wanted and a hoodie with ear buds in the draw strings that he has also been wanting. So he felt pretty cool dressed in his new clothes for school. He said he also had the best day ever at school. That is, for as much as he went. Ron picked him up at 11:30 and took him to Dixie's Diner for lunch. This has been a tradition Ron & I have done with our kids on their birthdays for as long as I can remember. I was a little sad I missed it this year since I am now working during the lunch hour. But I'm glad Ron was able to take him. Then he took him to the store and let him pick out a treat to take back to his class and a small gift for his birthday. He picked a Green Lantern flat hat. He didn't get back to school until 2:00pm! That's what you get when mom doesn't go with!

Since his birthday was on Friday, he had a late night party from 5:00pm-10:00pm with 7 of his friends. His party was themed around the mall. We found these invitations on line and printed them on card stock and laminated them to make them look like a Visa card.

When the boys first arrived, they went downstairs to the "Man Cave" Jordan had set up for them. I personally don't like to have people over to our house because we don't really have a family room that can accommodate a large group. This is the only room that is not finished in our house, but that didn't stop Jordan!

They ate pizza and watched Jordan's all time favorite movie, "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" hence the inspiration for his party idea. Although they only sat and watched the movie for the amount of time it took them to eat their pizza. The rest of the time they were running around and just being totally hyper. Occasionally I would hear them say, "quiet...this is a good part". It didn't help that they were wired on Mountain Dew, Jordan's favorite beverage that I rarely let him have but it was his birthday and Friday night, so whatever.

After the movie, I divided them into two teams and gave them each an assignment. Team Captain, Treasurer, Record keeper and Photographer. I gave the Record Keeper a list of 40 tasks with different point values they could choose to fulfill as a team. Some were dares, some were things they had to take pictures of, some were things they had to collect, and some were just information they had to find out. Some tasks required money so I gave $4.00 to each teams Treasurer. It was to get their picture taken in the photo booth, and to buy a gumball from the machine. The Team Captain was to keep everyone in line and to keep track of the time as they were to meet back at the designated place at exactly 8:30pm or for every minute they were late a point would be docked from their score. After a quick rundown of the rules... no running, screaming, harassing the customers or workers, be respectful, don't get the Mall Cop called on you, etc. etc. We were off...

This group of boys were a lot more daring than I thought! I tried to pair the teams equally with what I thought was one outgoing kid and a shy kid so that one team wouldn't have an advantage over the other on completing the tasks. I told them they could choose what they wanted to do and didn't have to complete everything. We would then meet back at 8:30 and add up the points. Surprisingly, both teams were very prompt and took it very seriously. They were so competitive. Ron and I just hung out and looked around in a few stores and then just quietly observed from a bench near center court. One dare was to ask permission to get your picture taken with a girl. Tristan really liked this dare and thought he should get extra credit for the extra girls! I really thought he would be one of the shyer kids! Turns out...not so much.

They had to get their picture taken wearing sunglasses.

Wearing a hat.

Buying a gumball.

Getting their picture taken with an employee at the mall.

Break dancing in the middle of the mall. (Looks like everyone cleared the area for this one. He must of been busting some major moves and needed some room because the mall was crowded that night!)

They had to ride a kiddie ride.

Get a drink from the drinking fountain while riding piggy back on a teammates back.

Pose like a Mannequin.

Wear a tiara and say in an English accent, "Hello, I am the Queen of England".

They also had to do other things like...

Salute people as they came out of Old Navy,
Go into Barnes & Noble and ask if they have any Hannah Montana books.
Ask for an employment application (they said it was for their mom! ha ha)
Collect a straw, napkin, paper clip, loose button, receipt, disposable toilet seat cover :)
Get 3 girls autographs (they loved that one)

While at the mall, they ran into their school teacher, Mrs. Crane. One of the dares was to get a perfume sample. They tried but said no one would give one to them so they sent Mrs. Crane into Victoria Secret to get one for them and she did! When they were done, we let each team ride in this Hurricane Simulator. It has counts down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then starts picking up wind speeds slowly until it reaches 78.2 mph wind. You wouldn't be able to tell in this picture if Jordan's hair wasn't so long! ( btw, he will be parting with it before he is ordained a Deacon next Sunday)

I think the boys had a good time at the mall and were telling funny stories about their experiences the rest of the night.

The winning team got 255 points and won Jordan's favorite candy bar, a Twix. The other team got 245 points and since they were duds, the received Milk Duds. Then we came back home and had cake and ice cream.