A Hobbit-y seventh birthday

"Then something Tookish woke up inside of him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick."


Dear little Noah has become an honorary member of the Inklings. After I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia to him and Isaiah this year, and his father read him The Hobbit this winter, he has taken his Audible credits and downloaded three Narnia books (and counting) and The Hobbit too. Every day now, after he begrudgingly gets his homework done, he unwinds by listening, and listening, and listening, to these stories. He can recite a rather shocking amount from any of these novels from playing the recordings of the books while he plays with Lego (and tells his siblings to leave him alone).

I digress.

It was no surprise to me or Patrick when he requested his party this weekend be a Hobbit-themed gathering. I don't think he could have made his father happier by such a choice. Cough, nerd, cough.

I got rather enthused, too, to whip out my bristol-board-and-tape skills.

First off, while I made my final preparations, specifically the cake, our friendly neighbourhood toddler-whisperer occupied the kids, because alas, the day before the birthday party happened to also be a PD day. 

(I've grown quite accustomed to getting things done when the boys are in school now).

Here Anna poses in front of a fort the boys made with said babysitter. It should be noted that this fort is a hobbit hole. Of course.

 I thought taking this leftover paper from an Amazon order would make a quaint Middle Earth-ish tree. It mostly looked just like a piece of crumpled paper taped to the wall. 

But the sign on the door when guests walked in made up for the tree fail.

(Credit to Shower of Roses for this and the following.)

Uber-classy exposed duct-tape and uneven strings gives the otherwise charming birthday banner that certain Jenna-ish je ne sais quois.

The Inn where Bilbo met the Dwarves for a pint and began their adventure.

 I decorated our puppet theatre to be a "bar" where Noah and I served (ginger) ale and (root) beer with potato chips for his pals.

Each young guest were given a print-out map of Middle Earth with little highlights of Bilbo's quest that we reenacted in our backyard. There was a game of Freeze tag with Patrick as the ever-generous good sport playing the Stone Troll (for a much longer time than I had initially budgeted, as I got side-tracked when a couple from our parish dropped by unannounced to bring me some boxes of books to pick through. Patrick kept chasing the kids until I was able to rejoin them with the next activity).

 Next up was Riddles in the dark, in the "cave" which is actually a dilapidated barn on our property. 

 Followed by a run through Shelob's web, of course.

After this step, they were set loose in the yard to find the treasure chest of (chocolate) gold coins that Smaug had stolen. One brave boy retrieved it, much to the delight of the guests.

Whereupon we came inside and took a whack at Gandalf's hat, 

aka a pinata Anna and I made for Noah with love.

My grandmothers china cabinet was adorned to look like the door to Bagend with a map of Middle Earth (which was actually our birthday present to Noah) overlooking the cake.

I served up said cake and called it Second Breakfast.

A close-up of the cake. 

I will go ahead and say I was proud of the way it turned out, given my track record. 

Two gluten-free cake mixes, edible rocks, shredded coconut dyed green, a little flower garden with flowers by my intrepid sister and soil with gluten-free graham crackers.

 The door was a Voortmans oatmeal-fudge cookie that I just filled in between the lines with a green icing Scribbler and added a yellow sixlet.

 It was such a wonderful party. The decorations, the cake and the games, that is, what I did, turned out nicely, but what turned out the best were Noah and his friends just playing independently in the beautiful warm weather after the planned events ended. I was charmed to see his friends pushing Anna on the swing. It was great to see one of his gifts (a large rope) being used right away in a game of tug-of-war between the kids and Patrick (again, he delights me for being so childlike sometimes). I loved watching them gather together in our dirt pit to dig with much enthusiasm.

Noah is in many ways an old soul. I love that about him. But it's always so delightful seeing him just being a kid among his group of really sweet friends.

Happy birthday to my sweet little boy!

 The most recent photo I have of Noah. And it may be my favourite picture ever.