Hunger Games

Alright, admittedly this is WAY off topic for this blog, but it was so much fun I had to share!

Munchkin turned 12 at the end of last month, but knowing that people are often out of town or otherwise engaged on Labor Day, we pushed the party back a week. She wanted to play Hunger Games for her birthday. Some close friends had created a way to play at home, so we stole their idea and ran with it. It worked out REALLY well.

I bought 24 white tee shirts online for about $1.70 apiece, and some dark-shirt iron-on printable paper. I printed all of the District symbols for Districts 1-12, and used the free Hunger Games downloadable font to print the kids' names onto the paper; cut the designs and names out, ironed them onto the shirts; two kids per district and VOILA, instant party favors.

I used the same font to print off "life" tokens. Five for the little kids; three for the big kids. Each token had the kid's name on it, so they couldn't be stolen.

I also hit up the dollar store and bought fifteen foam weapons - I didn't want everyone to wind up with a weapon, cause that would be fair, and therefore not in the spirit of The Hunger Games.

The party happened at a local park, which was great because there were woods everywhere, and the shelter is free to reserve for city residents. We fed the kids, and did presents, then had them sit down so that my friend "Wifey," dressed as Effie Trinket, could call the "Tributes" up to receive their shirts and tokens, and be acknowledged by everyone else. Then my stepdad, acting as President Snow, greeted the Tributes and wished them Happy Hunger Games. Effie then returned to the fore and announced the rules:

1.) If you are "killed," you must drop your weapon and return to "The Cornucopia" to hand in a token to one of the adults. There, you must count to 100 before "re-spawning."
2.) If you lose all of your tokens, you must return to "The Cornucopia" and set your district tee shirt aside, and then may return to the woods as a "muttation" and may tag the tributes to kill them.
3.) If you become a "muttation" you must be tagged five times before you die, at which point you return to "The Cornucopia" and re-spawn as the tributes do.

In addition to having to watch out for one another, a group of parents (myself included) ran around the woods pretending to be balls of fire; tracker-jackers and muttations, so the kids had to watch out for us, too. The mutts could be killed; the tracker-jackers and balls of fire could only be outrun.

Over all it was a great time, and even after we declared victors (two of the littlest kids who won through legitimate means), the kids asked to play again, so we reset the weapons and gave them a second shot at it.

I'm considering making this a monthly event, if we get enough interested kids and parents...

All told the party was inexpensive, easy and EPIC!

Baby Steps

Well, it’s been right around a month, and I have now had the menses I need to have. I called The IVF Clinic and they said I should inventory my surro-meds and report back to them. Of course, what with preparations for my munchkin’s birthday party, I keep forgetting to. I don’t expect it to cause problems, since they’re still waiting on IF for some fiscal details anyway.

I’m thinking this cycle will be about baby steps. (Ha, punny.) And not getting my hopes too far up too fast. Oh patience, why must you elude me so?

On an up note: We are good and settled in our new apartment. It’s small, but functional and I absolutely love it. Hubs has a few minor gripes, but he admits it’s a nice place. We’re within walking distance of his work, stores, Munchkin’s school and well within biking distance to my job, and we live in the same apartment building as Munchkin’s best friend – there’s even a little breezeway to get from their back door to ours.

So hopefully this will be a relaxing experience, and we won’t have any huge scary floods, and IF can take home another mellow, healthy baby. This is me crossing my fingers.