Día del Niño 2012

Vanessa, one of the children enrolled in the INFA programs, introduces Children's Day at last weekend's party.  This is the day where we celebrate what it means to be a kid.  "Have a good celebration, and Happy Día del Niño."

This year, I was in charge of organizing games for the 100+ kids involved with INFA.  I arrived with a bagful of supplies and a list of about 15 different relay races we could do.

I think I was more excited than the kids were.

We started off with a balloon race:

This being the first competition, there was a certain tension in the air; it took awhile before the kids caught on and started rooting for their teams.  They did better at this in the next go-round...

...Baseball Bats.  The point of this race is to get real dizzy before trying to run back to your team. When done properly, it's pretty entertaining. The kids, however, were too eager to pay attention to the spin-around-three-times rule and resorted to giving one quick twirl before sprinting back. Also, some of the kids got a little mixed up with the logistics of when to pick up and drop the bats.  And whether or not they were supposed to hit each other with them.

It turned out to be pretty entertaining after all.  Off-camera, two of the kids collided in a high-speed slide-tackle kind of way, which was also pretty spectacular.  Considering no one got hurt, of course.

Next up: Spoons and Ping-Pong Balls

Despite the fact that there was no running involved, this race seemed to be the general favorite among participants.

This one also got really heated at the end, with all three teams contesting that they were the winners.  We had to hold a finalist rematch to appease the mob.  It looked a little something like this:

Yikes.  I can't remember how we decided who won.  But everyone survived, which is what really counts.

At big parties like these that are held for the kids, even the neediest families find a way to pitch in - with food, music, party supplies, etc.  The ladies always end up doling out candy and sweets to the kids, with the grand finale being the giant sheet cake.

Everybody gets a slice, even us non-kids, who divvy up whatever's left over in the end.  I inexplicably ended up with the largest chunk of icing-smothered corner.  Somebody help me.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing,
jordan