Wii Birthday Party

I have to admit: I agonized a bit over Connor's 9th birthday. He was, and remains, a social animal. I believe, at one point, he verbally invited half the boys at his school to his party. He begged and begged and begged for the maximum number of his friends to come. I inwardly grimaced at the thought of 15 third-grade boys in my house for an afternoon in October, when the weather is as likely to be grim as glorious.

Then I had a lightbulb moment. I invoked the one thing more precious to Connor than crowds of friends.

"Connor, what if we have a Wii party?" I casually suggested.

It was met with crazed enthusiasm.

"Of course, that means we could only invite three guests, because most Wii games can only handle four players at a time."

And so, mom wins again.

The Theme:
Wii Birthday Party

The Entertainment:
I know some Wii parties will have guests share Wii remotes to enable more party participants. But since the reasoning behind my party was to limit that, we just made sure we had four remotes for use at our party. (We have three, we had one guest bring his from home.)

We centered the party around a game called Birthday Party Bash.

Wii labels it "a virtual birthday party in a box," which is a bit of a stretch, but it does come with party invitations (bonus points for mom). The game itself is a series of classic, birthday mini-games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, Hot Potato, Sack Race, Cake Stacker and Piñata Blast; it's similar to Wii Carnival Games, if you've played that. It also has 10 different party themed rooms for the birthday boy or girl to decorate. And it's a virtual steal online; Amazon pries it at $8 right now.

Yes, the game is simple and basic for a group of 9-year-old Wii enthusiasts, and no, it didn't get played much after his birthday. But really, that's the charm of it. None of our guests had played it before, so no one player was dominant. It was easy to explain, easy to understand, and perfect for 90 minutes of fun. It was also fun for Connor's family party; watching him teach his grandparents how to stack cakes using a Wii remote was worth the price of the game, right there.


The Food:
Because I correctly anticipated the boys would rather play Wii than eat, I didn't go to a lot of work. I ordered pizzas, forced them to take a break when the pizzas were delivered, and then we set out the ingredients for a make-your-own-sundae bar.


The Invitations:
Connor helped me make Wii remotes out of white, rectangular card-stock. We drew the buttons on the front and wrote the party details on the back. I have no pictures because apparently, I lost my mind that day.

But maybe that's a good thing, because last night, while Googling images of Wii remote party invitations, I found this for you, which is 10x better - 3D paper replicas of a Wii remote.

You can find the template here. Just print it out on white card-stock and follow the fold lines. I would either print out party invitation information and roll it up to fit inside the box (and hand deliver, of course) OR fill them with candy and give them to guests to take home. Either way, they are pretty darn cute for very little expense.