Happy Birthday - Minute to Win It Style!

Anybody with a December birthday will tell you that growing up as a Christmas baby can really stink. My birthday is 6 days before Christmas, which conveniently lines up with the end of finals, the last minute Christmas panic, and everybody leaving for vacation, making a birthday celebration the last thing on everybody's list. (I do owe Seth and Kelton a shout-out for making Bday 22 pretty great though!)

That said, this year was awesome! (Turns out way more people hang around when you live here permanently and have to work the week before Christmas!) On Friday, I had a fantastic birthday party (with the biggest turnout since I was about 5 years old and Santa made an appearance), and then spent the rest of the weekend generally bumming around and taking advantage of my sweet husband's generosity and willingness to wait on me hand and foot.

So the birthday party... We went out to dinner, then came back to our house for dessert and a Minute to Win It party. If you haven't seen this show on NBC, you need to. They come up with challenges involving household items, and give you 60 seconds to accomplish them. On their website, they have the "blueprints" for everything so that you can try them at home. ( http://www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it/ ) We selected a half dozen of the more indoor-friendly games for our party, and I have honestly never laughed so hard in my life...

We're American, so of course we had a scoreboard. (What's the point of playing if you can't win?) We noted how quickly a person finished the task and then awarded 3, 2, 1 points to 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, respectively. Prizes are in the REI bag on the windowsill :-)

We hooked the computer up to the TV and showed the actual Minute to Win It blueprints before each game. We did have to tweak most of the games; we ran them in heats so people were more comfortable doing ridiculously embarassing things.

We started simple, so first was Defying Gravity. Keep your balloons in the air for the entire 60 seconds. We did heats of 5 people with 2 balloons each and gave 1 point if you succeeded.

Next, Face the Cookie. Put an Oreo cookie on your forehead, and using only your facial muscles, maneuver it to your mouth as quickly as you can.

Third, Penny Hose. Place a penny in each foot of a pair of panty hose. Using only your hands, work your way down to both pennies. (This is a lot harder than it sounds!)

Fourth, Bobblehead. Put a pedometer on your forehead. Register as many steps as you can in 60 seconds by shaking your head. (As Tim will tell you, it takes minimal movement to actually get it to click :-)

 Fifth, Bite Me. Line up 5 lunch bags cut to heights of 10", 8", 6", 4", 2". Bend down and pick them up with your mouth, allowing nothing but your feet to touch the ground. (Felicity dominated everybody on this one! She grabbed all of the bags in just 17 seconds!! We didn't even have time to get a picture of her!)

Finally, Junk in the Trunk. Put 8 ping pong balls in an empty Kleenex box and tie it around your waist. Wiggle however you see fit to get them alllll out! NO HANDS!

Congrats to Wheeler for winning it all, and thanks to everybody for coming out and being such great sports! I had a fantastic time!

The party was super easy to plan and I would recommend it to anybody! We're already planning an outside party in the spring, so that we can do the more mobile and messy games! (My Berkine loves are lucky this show didn't exist while I was over there. We absolutely would have been playing these games at every single barbeque.) Enjoy! And tell me how it goes if you set up your own!

Linds