Riemer Family Adventures: EIGHT is Great

On the 23rd of April, our not-so-little Benjamin turned 8 years old! How could it be? What a special, curious, spunky, smart and cuddle-y guy he is. He has grown leaps and bounds since arriving in Germany. He has made a ton of friends at school, he gets along extremely well with his teachers and seems to really have blossomed in the past year.
Since his birthday fell on a Monday we decided to have his friend's party on the Sunday before. Apparently it is taboo to

do this in Germany. You are not supposed to wish anyone a "happy birthday" early nor have a party or cake or anything.

Well, since the weekend that followed his birthday was a holiday weekend we decided to break tradition and have it the day before anyway.
Josie had been planning his party for MONTHS. I think it was back in February when they sat down together and they mapped out what type of party he would have.

I suggested we do it at a Jump House or a laser tag place or ANYWHERE other than our house. But, nope. They wanted none of that. They wanted a home party. If it was to be sunny

we planned to have it in the sizable backyard. If it was rainy we thought we would have some games up in our apartment.
Yes, you can imagine my relief as I watched the weather forecast call for sunny skies and a temp in the mid 70's. Thank GOD!!

His guest list also grew as the party got closer. Several boys at school that had not been originally invited came up to him the week of and asked about his party "When is it? Where is it?" and then the not stereotypical question of "Can I come?" In the end his

guest list grew from 8 original invited guests to 13 who actually came! Again, thank GOD it was nice outside and we could have the entire thing outdoors.
Josie had planned the games the kids would play.

She made a huge hand drawn pin the cape on some character from "Plants vs. Zombies" which was to be the theme of the party. She also hand made/hand drawn another throw the ball in a cup game.

Our cool downstairs neighbors said that they could contribute Cornhole and Marty, after being at the Espionage Museum with Benjamin the week before came up with a laser maze for the boys to go through.
Josie helped make the cake and decorated it all by herself. She was so proud. The kids really wanted me to do a theme cake like I did for his Minecraft Party a few years back but there was NO way I was going to go to that much trouble for a theme cake here.

This was my time consuming Minecraft cake
from a couple of years ago.

I just don't have all of my kitchen tools nor the patience in the kitchen I once had, sadly. But the cake turned out delicious and beautiful.
Marty and the kids went out back and decorated the fence with balloons. They set up and tested out the

Laser Maze and then we waited patiently for his friends to show up.
They all seemed to have a really nice time. After the main games, Marty pulled out a couple of decks of cards and had the kids rapt with his magic skills. Haha!! He has done this for nearly every one of the kid's birthdays and I have to say the kids are always, surprisingly, a big fan of watching Marty do his magic.
After the magic we all sang a hearty Happy Birthday.

It was super windy so I had to step inside the apartment hallway to light the candles. Everyone devoured Josie's delicious cake and snacks and then Josie led them all in a game or two of "capture the flag"
Benjamin had a great time. His
One of the mom's thoughtfully collected money from the majority of the guests and they all went in to buy him a VERY cool lego robotics set. He can build the legos and then it syncs up with an app and he can program his lego creations to do things.