My oldest son will be 13 years old. I would like to plan something that is appropriate for his age.He has 10 friends that has would like to invite. I was thinking about taking him and his friends to the movie, out for pizza, and a cake at the resturant followed by a sleep over. He added on the sleep over when I asked him what would he like to do for his birthday. All ideas are welcome.
I think bowling is a great way to spend time for a party you can pretty much have the food, cake and entertainment all in the same place. (even the gifts) Most bowling alleys have arcade rooms too. Hope I helped, and good luck with that sleep over!
Check the park districts in and around your area as well as health clubs that have indoor pools. Alot of those places offer B-Day parties and provide supervision and pizza, all you have to do is bring the goodie bags and cake, they are usually pretty reasonably prices as well. That would be a fun and easy fix for you. - Good Luck and Happy B-Day to your little man
Also if you can find a place that has indoor batting cages would be fun for them too.
Hi Cathy B:
In a nutshell, "boys just wanna have FUN!" (smile)
We are a family of three. It's my Hubby, our son and me. We're full time Pastors and have our own business on the side and have been married for 21 years this July 18th!! (Yeah!!PTL!)
Our son is 16yrs old now. We started giving him B-Day sleepovers with his friends when he turned 10 until he turned 14. He absolutely enjoyed the sleepovers and had us to make it an Annual B-Day event! (Lol) Since we started the sleepover thing with our son, we've learned that girls are not the only ones that like having their buddies sleepover to the house but boys do to! Boys do wanna have FUN!
Our B-Day Sleepovers would last Friday night-thru Sunday morning.(sigh) The weekend would end with My husband and I taking everybody to church with us on Sunday morning. Our son's friends would be his special guests at Church and he would be given special acknowledgment from our Pastor. But with these Sleepovers and a house full of boys (sometimes 12 in all) cost became an issue. So we planned the bulk of our activities for "in-home". Our in-home activities would include, ordering pizza; making nachos; plenty of chips, candy, junk, etc; hide-n-go-seek; video game competitions with prizes; shooting hoops in our backyard; and Talent Shows. I would videotape their performances and we'd play it back and have a sorta "AFV" time watching the awful performances! It was hilariously smashing!
We also rented a few Bowling lanes so the boys could bowl. We also rented our neighborhood Fitness Gym for a few hours and held a Basketball game between the boys. My husband would chaperone the Basketball game and even play with the boys! Of course my son loved having his Dad showoff some of his fancy moves on the court in front of his buddies! His buddies started calling my Hubby "Michael Jordan's Brother"!(Lol) After the game, Hubby would take them all out for breakfast!
When our son turned 13, we rented a Cafe and gave him a type of "rites of passage" ceremony acknowledging his entry onto the road to manhood. Although we're not Jewish,we are Protestant Christians so we just adapted some of the Jewish Barmitvah activities to fit our culture and the occasion. We invited all of our family/friends along with our son's friends, and his Church and School teachers. The evening was filled with salutations and well wishes for our son as well as gifts,accolades and reflections from those present. The event ended with my Hubby declaring Prayers and Prophetic destiny over our son and a song from me, his Mommy.
Of course throughout the years, we've made sure to videotape each B-Day Celebration and snap tons of pictures for memories! Every now and then I look at these vdo's and pics and see how our little boy has grown and is yet growing...of course the tears fall and I get all "mommy-mushy" and sentimental! But they are tears of gratitude to God for every second He's blessed us to have our Son these 16 years!
Yes Cathy, over the years of B-Day Celebrations for our son, I've found that the most important things were not the activities that we planned but the love, time and honor my Hubby and I put into each activity as we did them with and for our son! What made our son the happiest was having his Dad and Mom make a fuss and commotion over him! We made sure that our son felt honored and special, and "experienced our love" on each of his B-Days.
I hope this helps!
Sleepovers are fine but......that's a lot of boys sleeping over! We stopped party/sleepovers two years ago when my daughter had 8 friends (for the second year year in a row)sleep over. They don't sleep! Or someone gets upset and wants to go home....or they are bouncing off walls, or they are hungry at midnight....etc... I'm not opposed to 2 or 3 sleeping over but, in fairness, you can't have a few ONLY sleep over and not invite the rest. Why not do a pizza party at a restaurant, or rent out a gym for a couple hours, take them to a hotel w/ a nice pool for a couple hours (William Tell - Countryside/LaGrange area has a beautiful pool and just have you and your family stay overnight (Lincoln-way has pool rental in the New Lenox/Frankfort area or have a home party w/ scavenger hunt in neighborhood - broken up in two teams w/ one parent supervising kids on each team. Possibly a fear factor party/scavenger hunt. Even an ice skating or roller skating party (great locations in Orland Park, Joliet....and others.) New indoor, water park in Gurnee. Do that for a day. Boys just want to keep moving (and eating!) . When they get bored - LOOKOUT! Good luck!
Hi ~
When my son has had Birthday parties we have had it at a hotel that has a pool where the boys swam till late and then we picked up Little Ceasaer Pizza for $5.
We've also done bowling at 3PM where they bowled two games and had hot dogs. I brought chips and goody bags and made cupcakes (bowling theme) for the boys and then came back to our house where the kids played video games and spent the night and then I made them breakfast in the morning and the parents had to pick them up at noon. It gets loud ~ but the boys had a great time!
North Beach in Lombard rents out their real sand volleyball courts for kids parties. They also have two bowling lanes there. You can have them serve the food and you bring the cake. My kids and their friends had a blast doing that. Enjoy and Happy Birthday!
You do realize that there will be no sleeping at the sleep over? I have 3 boys and I have done this many times. Boys can get wild, I would suggest limiting the sleep over to only a couple close friends. Just don't let the other friends know about it. I have had 12 boys sleep over when they were only 13 also, just keep a close eye on them, with 10 boys there's bound to be some fighting or wrestling that could get out of hand. I think your movie and pizza idea sounds great. Have a great time, I love seeing my kids have fun with their friends. They grow up so fast, you will be glad that you made his 13th birthday special!!!
When my daughter turned 13 I got conjoining rooms at a hotel with a pool. She invited 7 of her friends and we ordered pizza and the girls got to swim.
A friend of our does her sons birthdays (he is 12 now) by finding a hotel with a pool and getting a room or two for a sleep over. They order pizza go swimming and watch movies. It seems to work and they always have fun. Just watch for room restrictions about how many in a room ect. And be sure to have enough adults too. Also, there is a place around here called vertical endeavors check them out on the web and also there is something similar to it in Homewood. They are places that offer rock climbing a fun thing for any age especially for teen boys. I wish you blessing on the teen year. Yikes!
