Birthday Sleepover Party - 8 yr. olds  We celebrated our eldest son's 8th birthday this weekend with a sleepover for 6 of his friends. Our younger son was allowed to invite one of his friends as his guest so we had 9 boys in total.  Everyone had arrived by 7.30pm and we ordered pizzas. While we were waiting for them to arrive we played the first game - FIND THE FIFTY. We had put 50 small pieces of paper around the house with a word on each piece - such as ocean, or table, or dog. Each piece of paper was numbered - i.e. ocean was 1, table was 2, dog was 3 etc etc. The boys were divided into teams of 2 (the younger ones paired up with an older boy who did all the writing while they found the words). Each team had to find all the words - this kept them busy for half an hour. When the first team had found all the words the pizza had arrived, so we had that and then played the next game, a SCAVENGER HUNT. We had 10 clues around the house and the boys again were divided into teams of 2 or 3.  The first piece of paper was not a clue but told them where to go to look for the clue - in our case it was under the dog's bed! We had clues like: operates the TV from a distance (remote control) and Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the ......? (clock). Each piece of paper was numbered to be sure they found the clues in the right order. The prizes were hidden in the tumble dryer!  I had put a selection of small gifts (pencil, airhead, notepad, keychain etc) in pencil boxes and put these in the dryer. The next game was PASS THE PARCEL. I had wrapped a big parcel with lots of layers and put in tootsie rolls, or little lizards, and also forfeits. The boys sat in a circle and the music started and the parcel was passed around the circle.  When the music stopped whoever was holding the parcel got to remove a layer of paper. The forfeits were a big hit - things like: dance like a chicken, hop on 1 leg, sing a verse of Old McDonald.  The prize in the center was a techdeck skateboard.  Then we had cake and ice cream. By this time it was 9.30pm so they started watching the first movie - Stuart Little - with plenty of popcorn.  At 10.30 we got them all into their pjs and sleeping bags and they finished the first movie and moved on to the next - A Kid In King Arthur's Court. At 9.30pm the two younger ones watched a movie upstairs in one of the bedrooms and fell asleep up there so they were settled for the night.  At midnight I turned the TV off and told the boys to settle down to sleep. In the morning they were all awake by 6.30 so they played some games on the computer, then had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. After that I had bought some plain white t-shirts and tubes of fabric paint so they all decorated a T-shirt, then they got dressed and we went outside to play more games.  We did the BALLOON STOMPING GAME - 3 or 4 balloons were tied to the dominate ankle on each boy and they ran around the yard trying to stomp on each other's balloons.  Parents started to arrive then so they had an improtu game of tag and by 10am everyone had gone home!  I had several games that we did not get to play but better that than not enough games!