Edward had a birthday party at our house the last Saturday in June. Officially, it was a "half-birthday" party. Unofficially, it was a way for us to give him a party that did not involve a herd of six-year-old boys crashing around inside our house.

He invited four friends so that the total number of boys in our care, including our own offspring, equaled the age of his celebration (we rounded down, as we are in no position to deal with half a child.) One couldn't make it so we ended up with five kids. (Note: Edward also insisted on inviting his beloved Kindergarten teacher. She was out of town. Or was that "out of town"?)

The first step to a back porch/yard pool party was to clean off the back porch. The boys were in charge of wiping down all the balls and toys while I swept out many months of accumulated dirt. 

This was accomplished on the last afternoon before our state, and, really, most of the country was plunged into the great heat wave of 2012--a solid 10 days of upper-90s and low-100s. UGH! But perfect for boys running around with water balloons and squirt toys. (The invitation had noted: "In case of rain...pray for us!")

The next step was baking the cake, despite the heat. We had seen a picture in a friend's kid-oriented cookbook and thought this sea monster was appropriate for our water-themed party. It looked much better in the book, but Edward was quite pleased. And it tasted good.

Then there was the task of feeding and entertaining the boys for two hours. Food mission was accomplished with John's Little Caesers Pizza pick-up. Plus watermelon and fruit punch, by special request of the birthday boy.

Entertainment was all water-based with a large inflatable pool, squirt toys from the Target dollar bins (these also were the take-home gift along with a pack of gum), colored ice cubes for a relay race (and to see how the colors melted together) and about 200 water balloons. 

Those balloons lasted about 15 minutes and the games even less time, but in truth, they were perfectly content to make their own fun with the squirt toys and pool. In a moment of desperation before I realized all would be fine, I suggested that John create an "obstacle course" for the boys to run through. Starting with the old standby "head on bat and spin yourself three times" they ran forward and backward around the yard a couple of times, ending up in the pool.

At one point they started dumping buckets of water into the dirt where once a tree stood (still too root-y to plant grass) but by some miracle they were only interested in creating the mud, not jumping in it. (Daniel and Edward did this later and I was even more glad that the guests hadn't gone this route--might have been some unhappy parents!)

Lest you worry about poor Daniel fending for himself with four six-year-olds to contend with, let me assure you, he was not intimidated in the least.

All in all, it was a successful gathering. Edward was beaming from ear to ear and declared it "the best party ever!" After all, what more do little boys want than to run around like maniacs with their friends? And receive new Star Wars Lego sets as gifts. He spent the afternoon putting them together and the ensuing days slowly adapting them, adding and removing pieces, as needed for whatever role they might play in his evolving Lego Universe.