Xbox Birthday Party

K turned 4 years old last week (eeek!) and we celebrated with a birthday party on Saturday.

I hate to admit it but my handsome and smart son LOVES playing video games.  He started playing with his older sister and dad and in true 'boy' fashion took to them like a duck to water.  We limit his time playing them but I'm fairly certain if given the opportunity, he's play them all day!

We have a Microsoft Store nearby and I won a party there in a raffle.  I honestly had never heard of anyone having a party in the Microsoft Store and didn't find much when I Googled it but took a chance and decided to make that the location for my Xbox loving-almost-four-year-old! 

I hadn't even been in the store so I had no idea how or where the party would be held.  Usually this would stress me out to the max but I've been so outrageously busy I haven't had time to stress too much about any of it.  I went with the mantra "It will all be ok" and it was.  Was it seamless and perfect? No. Did the kids seem to have fun? Yep!

When we arrived nothing was set up.  The area they were calling the 'Theater' for the party was just a area in the back of the store (totally open to customers and definitely not big enough for the 20-30 people I was told could come).  After about 45minutes of moving things around and changing the games the party was able to really get started (and yes, my guests arrived on time and we all kind of just waited around in the store area).  The Kinect wasn't working properly and the host wasn't aware of that so the kids weren't really having a whole lot of fun with the Kinect (which was the main attraction) at first.  By this time I was stressed quite a bit...the kids were clearly not having much fun.  Once everything was fixed and they were able to play the Kinect on the large TV and other Xbox games on the littler ones and I started to relax.

K picked out the favors- surprise! he wanted to give chocolate to his friends.  So we got cartons of Milk Duds and I printed out little thank you notes on them. Easy Xbox favors!  I also made an Xbox controller cake that was a big hit!

All in all it was successful but not perfect.  K had fun with his friends and family and we got to celebrate my first born's 4th birthday. 

How do you usually celebrate birthdays? I'd love to hear your comments!