Historic Birthday

Wylie’s Birthday Party was yesterday and it was a grand ole’ time!

We made history by having the first ever Birthday Party at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.

That’s right folks, we took the kids to a Military Museum for a Birthday Party. For kids. Wylie initially wanted to stage a Civil War Re-enactment in our back yard, but I didn’t think that I or anyone else was really up for that – I mean how do you assign “teams?” I didn’t want to touch that with a ten foot pole, so instead we came up with this plan, Operation MacArthur and it was great. Wylie loved it, and all the other kids seemed to have fun as well. We are lucky to have found ourselves with friends whose kids can appreciate this kind of off-center and dare I say – educational- party. No one complained to me about the lack of video games or pizza and for that I was very pleasantly surprised and pleased.

The Museum staff was so very helpful and had lots of games and activities all lined up. And our wonderful guide Heather didn’t sugar coat a thing, which I think made it even more interesting for the kiddos. There was much discussion about the main killer in the Civil War being diarrhea, which of course was a big hit with our crew of kids ages 6- 11. Since the staff are used to dealing with large groups of school children, they knew how to handle our crowd perfectly. Also Heather herself has 3 little boys, so she was not afraid in the least.

After the mini-tour, the games, and the scavenger hunt we retreated to the lawn on the east side of the building and had a meal of Fried Chicken and Potato Salad under the old shade trees.

After that we cut the cakes – A Chocolate Cake (Ft. McClellan)  and A Carrot Cake (AKA The Union’s Fort Sumter,) Wylie personally placed all the army men in their strategic positions, and added the little flags we had made just for this occasion.

And once again the South was destroyed. 

Finally we finished off the day with a good summertime water fight and passed out the goody bags…

Wylie described the day as “awesome” and “cool” and really that is all this Momma could ask for.

And now we are done with my boys birthdays for another year. I think I will make myself a tasty beverage and celebrate with a magazine full of pretty pink things!