The Annual Tyler Bladh Sleepover Awards

As some of you know, our son Ty had his 5th birthday over the weekend. Now one of his cousins started the tradition of having all of the boy cousins for a sleepover for their birthday…. I think it was Kobe? Not really sure but that’s beside the point I could go on about how great this tradition is but…. Let’s just get to the story. I wanted to give you a brief view from my perspective as his parent and the uncle of these fun kids of just how awesome the night was. First I’ll start with Ty. He has had this birthday planned since his last one, so for a year now we have heard how he is going to have all of his cousins over, which he calls his “friends,” and they were going to have pizza, watch a movie and stay the night.



When all of the cousins got there it was complete and utter chaos! Hilarious! I think Bruin either liked the cheddar flavored chex mix or hadn’t been fed that day, because he must have eaten the whole bag. I’m assuming it was the prior reason, can’t imagine the wife of our police officer not making sure her child was fed. After feeding the beasts and listening to each one of their takes on the pizza, the drinks and the snacks we had available we took them to the park. The herd was separated into two different groups: those that could find their way to the park on their own and those that couldn’t. It’s really a good thing that Chaz and Juli were there because we probably would have lost some along the way.

We got to the park and the pack of wolves got to playing games with each other. They naturally separated into 2 different groups and that consisted of one of the oldest cousins cheating and then crying because another faster cousin won from shear speed in whatever game they were playing. After watching some of them risk their lives climbing on the outside of the play sets we decided it was time to leave before we had to visit the hospital.



So we got home and had cake and ice cream. Now, Erika and I wanted to watch tv and the kids had the idea of watching a movie also. Well… we didn’t want to give up the good tv in the family room with the surround sound and the comfortable couches. So we decided to cram all of them into Ty’s room… all 7 of them… in Ty’s hot, small tv, bad sounding room. It took us about 2 seconds to convince them that it was a good idea and another 10 min to convince the mob not to take out Tosh who was sitting in front of the tv. After I saw how deliberate he was sitting to block people’s view I just said, “well Tosh…. You’re on your own kid, have at ‘em boys.” Luckily at that time the silent ringleader Trey needed his beauty sleep and had already fallen asleep so no harm done.

After the movie, we brought the flock into the family room and let them each gradually go unconscious. Then the morning came and the silent ringleader, who had all the sleep he needed, woke everyone up at 6:30…. I have to believe it was all part of his diabolical plan because we had not the effort to wake up at that time and chaperone so the mob had a good hour to run about and go without supervision. Genius…. Pure genius. Once we realized what was going on we arose from our slumber and had everyone put all of their stuff “by the front door”….

Once again another part of his villainous planning as you can see. Then we made pancakes and waited for their parents, who I can only imagine had a more restful night then usual, dreadfully come to pick up their saintly children.

A good time was had by all, now it is time for the Annual Tyler Bladh Sleepover Awards:


Most likely to eat until it hurts

Most addicted to video games

Most likely to become the next Evil Knievil

Most likely to get away with anything, mostly because he gets lost in the background

Least amount of pain tolerance

The next Al Capone. Look at him in the back with the red shirt, I don't know whether he's passing gas or smiling thinking about what he's planning on doing next....remarkable...

Happiest kid of the night

Our favorite girl