Gracie's 8th Birthday Party

An invitation was given to every kid in the class, "Come to the school grounds for a birthday party, lunch and games Saturday from noon to three and plan to get dirty!"  We played capture the flag with flour bombs.  Each player armed with a paper bag of flour, the red vs the yellow.   We set out the rules and separated the teams, the red defended the playground and the yellow had the grass hills.  The flour bombs were under control for a little while... We stopped at 1:45 to sing happy birthday and blow out candles at which point most of the kids had white hair.

Eva, Tui, Brodie, Tayla and Gracie

Ben making a run for it

Gracie gets caught by Emma and Tui

Grace, Tom and Echo are freed from jail by their teammate Paige.  

Andre with the Yellow Flag and the first Red victory.

Amelia and Andre.  Until this moment Andre had very little flour on him.

Tom on the approach

Gracie with the Red Flag and the first Yellow victory.

After a few games we decided to make it harder by hiding the flags.

Ben sneaking into Yellow territory

After brownies and milk we moved to the big field and played a few more games.  We played hide and seek, sardines and octopus, some kids played on the jungle gyms while others blew bubbles or rode scooters, bikes or skate boards.  Choice of fish or hotdog with chips and water to drink was the lunch menu, which they devoured, no chip left behind.  The water ended up on a few heads, as is the way of eight-year-olds, the result left a few girls sporting doughy dreadlocks by the afternoon.... Even after a shower Grace still had flour in her hair.  

Brodie securing the Yellow flag

Waiting on the other team...

Charlotte going after Gracie

Gracie, Tayla and Amelia blowing bubbles

Brodie, Andre, Gracie, Tayla, Amelia

Emma and Gracie

Jessica, Tayla and Charlotte

Emma making bubbles

Echo

Brodie and Gracie, taken by Echo.

We were exhausted by the end but it had been fun.  Grace was happy, the party had been a success and we survived it...