Spencer's 13th Birthday Party

After all of the cute themed birthday parties of the Spring, I was struggling to come up with a good teenager party.  But I ended up being pretty excited about my idea of an outdoor movie and "Night Games," and so was Spencer.  He invited all the boys and girls that he's friends with, that I would allow him to invite (in other words, no older girls), and we had a gorgeous night down at our neighborhood pavilion.  They started the night by playing capture the flag and four step on the playground and in the neighboring woods, and then we rounded them all up for cake.  I was so excited about this cake!  It was a 13 layer cake, perfect for a 13 year old boy.  It wasn't too difficult to make, although it did take all day.  I wish I had taken pictures of the process, but it involved 13 round aluminum pans, greased and lined with parchment paper.  That's what took the longest amount of time, and the layering and frosting was easy.  And surprisingly it wasn't very crooked!  Anyway, I made the kids Oooo and Ahhh for the cake, allow me to take pictures of it, and then they dug in.  After cake, Spencer opened presents (including a few pieces of coal, which he thought was hilarious), and then we started the movie on the big projector and screen.  We popped popcorn in an old fashioned popcorn popper, and had popcorn boxes for each of the kids.  They sat and watched, munching on popcorn and candy, for about half of the movie.  Then slowly but surely they started to run around and want to play.  Eventually we turned off the movie, gave all the kids glow sticks, and they played Capture the Flag until their rides came to get them.  They would have been happy to play for at least another hour!  It was actually a ton of fun, and we really enjoyed spending the evening with Spence and his buds.