The previous summer Seth and I started reading the Great Brain series on our big car trip. Over the year, we read all 9 books together and Seth thought they would make a great theme for a party.
We had a little photo booth set up to take old fashioned pictures. Here's the whole group.
Austin, Mason, Will, Cole, Judah, Kade
Kyler, Caden, Seth, Joel, Blake
We started the party off with a craft. The Great Brain, Tom D. Fitzgerald, helped his local Indian tribe and became blood brothers with the chief, so we made rain sticks out of paper towel tubes.
The boys in the books play Outlaw and Posse, so we played a tag type game in the cul-de-sac.
In the books, Tom is always coming up with schemes to make money, like putting on magic or mind reading shows, so Seth learned a few tricks and had a little performance for his friends.
The kids were most impressed with the mind reading. Someone would pick up an object from the table and Seth would read their mind, telling them which object. They figured out how he did some of the other tricks but not that one. After the show, I set up dinner while the boys played Capture the Flag.
I had finally convinced Seth that pizza did not fit the theme, so we had an old fashioned dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, jello and rolls.
Another one of Tom's schemes was the Wheel of Fortune. In the book, the boys have to pay to spin, but we just had the boys spin the wheel to see what prize they won. We tried to find old fashioned prizes like train whistles, puzzles, and taffy.
Tom and his brothers made ice cream for their Sunday dinners each week, so we provided different ingredients and had the boys make ice cream in baggies. The boys had to shake their baggies for about 10 minutes, so Seth opened presents while they shook.
When the ice cream was ready, we brought out the cake and sang to the birthday boy.
He made a wish,
and the boys had cake and ice cream. Austin opened his bag of ice cream right into his lap!
The official party was over but everyone stuck around to watch Tom & Huck since Tom Sawyer is a little like Tom Fitzgerald (the Great Brain movie is pretty bad).
The party was definitely fun and original.
