Since L-man is obsessed with animals and especially the PBS show Wild Kratts, we had a Wild Kratts birthday party! I knew I wasn't up for a huge one with tons of kids, so I had him narrow down his guest list to only five friends and had our first "drop-off" party without parents! Super fun, I tell ya!
Lady-LE was my big party-planning helper during the day when L-man was still in school. She helped arrange all of our party games, and showed off her true colors by playing family and house with all our bugs and fish.
I love pinterest and my own limited skills in photoshop that allow me to have my own creative license with the party. :) Look for ideas, tweak it a little, and make it myself. Good system for our budget and preferences!
With only five boys coming plus my own two kids it was fun to keep it simple but still put in extra effort where I wanted to. We had five creature power discs for each kid, and games to go along with most of them. Decorating was basically any animal thing I could whip up, with pictures of the tv show.
The creature power discs were laminated cardstock with velcro stuck to the back.
Creature run-down:
Bat = hunting for bugs with magnify glasses in our "jungle" grass that I hadn't mowed in over a week. (no picture, but was really fun! they all collected bugs in a small tupperware to take home)
Cheetah = dorn those cheetah tails made from pipe cleaners and play a game of tag trying to pull one another's tail off.
Large Mouth Bass = fishing in our fishing pool
Beaver = building a dam with pretzel sticks and chocolate frosting {which we didn't end up doing because the pretzels I bought had traces of peanuts in them and we had peanut allergies in our bunch - bummer!}
Peregrine Falcon = no game, but the birthday boy's favorite creature of all so we had to include it and used it as the cake topper
What good would creature power discs be without creature power suits?! I made these out of black fleece so I didn't have to worry about sewing any hems. Kind of made up my own pattern, having three green and three blue for Chris and Martin (main characters). Lady-LE was the exception and she got the pink. :) The front paw has the other side of velcro where you stick the disc to.
The whole crew. I would introduce a new creature by giving them clues about what that creature does. Once they guess it, they had to put their creature power disc on their suit and yell, "Activate Creature Power!" Here they just put on their cheetah tails.
And this is the game of tag getting started.
It honestly didn't last as long as I expected because they all wore gym shorts so there weren't any belt loops to hook the tail onto! :) But then L-man came up with the idea of hiding all the cheetah tails in the grass and then hunting for them because cheetahs are good hunters. So we went with it and the kids loved this one even more than the first!
L-man pretends to be a cheetah all the time and is seriously fast on all four legs!
Next was the large mouth bass. By far the favorite game of the party! I cut dowels in half, hot glued twine to the dowel, and the other end of twine to some magnets. The fish are the bait-fish that you can buy in a store. Took off the hooks and wire cutters and looped paper clips through a small circle on them. Easy!
Our little kiddie pool is rather small though ... having seven kids surround it got a little cramped but they all still loved it.
The party goers. And yes, that is the only single picture I got of the birthday boy. Poor planning!
Ryan was on nights and I knew I couldn't do anything fancy for food. So we just had lots of fruit and veggies and ordered pizza - even splurged and had it delivered since I was running solo. Best decision ever. Boys don't care about the cutesy little details like that anyway!
Simple but awesome peregrine falcon cake.
My favorite part is L-man saying that he loves me in the middle of the song. Perfect!
Opening presents always turns into a grab fest! Super fun though!
The party was a major success. I loved having the kids all to myself and being able to do more games and focus on them rather than on hosting and catering to other adults. It was just right for us and perfect for what L-man wanted and would enjoy.
Happy birthday big guy! We love your enthusiasm and energy for life!
4 comments:
Wow, Heather, this is your low-key, scaled-back party?? Love it, looks like your sweet boy loved it too! My favorite is the birthday song video, I have watched it over and over just to see that cute smile and sweet "I love you" exchange! Thanks for sharing!
Absolutely love it! The video is so darling and all the ideas, decorations, games, cake...so amazing and fun! Quite the theme party and looks like everyone had so much fun! Great updates!! xo C
So sweet!!!! We love the birthday video, too. You totally rocked the Wild Krats party theme. I am amazed you can do this kind of awesome while you're pregnant. :)
The "I love you" in the middle made me all teary. What a sweet boy. I'm also impressed with all of it! The vests are awesome! I bet that sweet "I love you" and the big smile made all the effort wort it!
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