Peyton's Batty 7th Birthday!

Every year, when it comes time to celebrate a birthday, I ask each child what kind of birthday party they'd like to have. Well this year was no different, but when I asked Peyton and his response was "a brown bat party Mom" I truly cringed! How in the world was I gonna pull off a bat party, and not just any bat, "a brown bat"? Really, thanks Kratt Brothers?! I had no clue. I set to looking on pinterest, and that was NO help at all, so then I started googling bat information and that led me to many a conversation with people I would NEVER normally talk to, like a bat conservationalist in Florida, three different exterminators here in Central Arkansas, and several people at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. This became quite the feat as I began the party planning process. Thankfully, I finally found the Witt Stephen's Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center and my party planning took off! And while I'm on it, let me just say, that they have a monthly program for kids ages 4-8 one Saturday a month, called Lil' Wild Ones that is on all kinds of animals from squirrels to birds, bats to bald eagles, I would highly recommend it!

With halloween having just occurred, I didn't want the party to look halloweeny, so I decided to just use the colors black and lime green. Here's what the party table looked like. Peyton thought that the bat brownies (iced with royal icing) were "awesome" and I too must say I thought they turned out really cute!





Here's two of my most favorite party helper-setter-uppers!


And there's the birthday boy, who's technically not 7 just yet, but he's fast approaching it!



Oh how I love him!


Some of his closest friends gathered with us to help celebrate...



Can you tell they were having a good time?


Emerson and Ava Jane did too! Ava Jane enjoyed many handfuls of MnM's which she thought were just wonderful!!



We started the party in the Education room where one of the Game and Fish Commission Educators talked about bats; how they help humans and how we in turn can help them. Here's several interesting facts: a single brown bat can catch up to 1,200 mosquito sized insects in an hour; while others mammals glide, bats are the only ones that are capable of continuous flight; some bats live alone while others live in caves with 1,000's of bats. The brown bat, which is Peyton's all time favorite bat, and a native here to Arkansas, can live in a twelve inch area with over 1400 bats, that's how tiny they are! Most bats eat insects and bugs but there are those that feed on fruit, fish and even blood. The vampire bat has such sharp teeth that it can pierce an animals (or humans) skin without them even feeling it! And of course there's the fact that bats carry rabies, which makes their bites potentially dangerous.

After the speaker, there was an Arkansas Game and Fish video about all the different types of wildlife in the Natural State, which I must say was quite interesting, dare I say that even the adults found it interesting? From there it was time for the Nature Center Bingo game or "scavenger hunt". If you've never been to the Witt Stephen's Nature Center, I must tell you, it is so well done. The kids had a blast.








Once everyone had finished up their scavenger hunt we headed outside to sing and have cupcakes.






It's hard to believe that this little guy is getting so big...truly the time has flown and he's been such a tremendous joy and blessing to our entire family. We're incredibly thankful for both the young man that he's becoming and for getting to see character qualities that we've been praying would develop in him. We praise God for Peyton Thomas Head, we love you so much!