Winston's Fourth Birthday Party..."Classy" Monster Truck

I could never get a straight answer from Winston about what he wanted to do for his birthday party.  Or if he even wanted to have a birthday party at all.  About a week and a half before, he finally -- confidently -- stated he wanted to have a monster truck party.  The first things that came to mind were cut-off shirts and mullets.  Eek!  Not for the four-year-old crowd.  However, Pinterest never fails, and I was able to get some basic ideas of how to simply pull something together.  

"Pin the wheel on the monster truck."

I'm all about classic party games.  I printed off a monster truck clip art image from the internet and took it to Kinko's to be blown up on architecture paper.  Poor print quality, but it doesn't matter.  I slapped some color on that thing and it looked pretty darn good.  Winston thought it was amazing, which was the only validation I needed.  

With the help of my in-laws (God bless them!), we made monster trucks for each of the boys.  We rounded up enough boxes from Costco and around the house.  Then my father-in-law painted each of them red or blue and cut holes in the top.  Finally, we attached some ribbon for sort of suspenders to hold the truck in place.  The boys then got to add headlights, license plates and color them as they wanted.  I wasn't sure if the boys would like this activity or not.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun they had doing it.  They LOVED it!  They probably spent 20 minutes working on their trucks, personalizing them and being creative.  I was thoroughly impressed.  

Our last activity was an obstacle course, a play off the monster truck course one might see at a monster truck rally.  Am I right?  I failed to get any pictures of the boys doing the obstacle course.  Some of them needed a little more help than others.  But again, I was pleasantly surprised at how much they loved it.  They jumped over inflatable tires, ran around the some cones, ran around the counter, then over a little ramp thing and crossed the finish line.  The rainy weather meant everything had to be indoor, but it was fine.  We pushed all of the furniture out of the way, which meant plenty of room for the whole party.  

The weekend before both Dave and I were in Nauvoo with the youth from our church.  The party was Monday morning.  Basically the ONLY day we could have it unless we waited until the end of March. So, to simplify a little more, we just ordered pizza and have veggies and juiceboxes for lunch.  Easy.  Each boy took home a ballon and his own monster truck.  No muss, no fuss.  

Happy birthday, Mr. Win.