For my son's 9th birthday we went with the always popular Army theme. We have six boys attending including my son.
The invitations are "Draft Notices" telling them to report for basic training in camo and boots with a dog tag inside with their rank and serial number on it. The serial numbers will be used to divide into odd and even teams for the tug-of-war later. Each child's face will be painted when they arrive by my husband the drill sergeant. We will start with a game of "Sarge Says" with the winner choosing a prize from an Army duffel bag. Since my son's birthday is in February we can't go outside for the obstacle course so we are transforming our basement. Each boy will be timed starting with 10 repetitions on the stair stepper, running through tires, 10 jumping jacks, through a tunnel (made from our game table draped with a camo sleeping bag), over a saw horse, 10 repetitions on the rowing machine, and across the water hazard (a kiddie pool with a rope hung from the I-beam above). Then Sarge will direct them to the egg/spoon race with a hard boiled egg dyed green and decorated with a marker to look like a grenade. The next game will be a balloon pop where everyone pops one balloon at a time. Each balloon has a piece of paper inside with instructions such as; 'Do 10 jumping jacks', 'Do 5 push ups', 'Collect a game prize', 'Trade game prizes with anyone', 'Tell someone else to do 10 jumping jacks' etc. Then the Sarge will separate them for the tug-of-war. By this time they will be completely worn out and ready to eat some cake. The cake is going to be decorated like a flag. Before singing happy birthday they will say the Pledge of Allegiance. Our local Army recruiting center was kind enough to provide us with water bottles, pencils and posters for each child. They have tons of promotional material that changes all the time. The Dollar store is stuffed full of great Army related game prizes ranging from toy walkie talkies and plastic army men to toy tanks and grenade shaped water balloons. Then we will settle down to watch "Small Soldiers" until the folks arrive. Each child will be given a certificate of completion of Basic Training.
