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| Birthday Boy! |
This year, my oldest wanted an Angry Bird Birthday Party. So we cleared out our bonus room (a process that took a few weeks), and made it into an Angry Bird Party room. I covered the built-in book shelves with a blue tablecloth from dollar tree, and then strung streamers across them (to hide the books and boardgames).
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| Book Shelves |
On one side of the room, I set up a life-size Angry Bird game. I reversed boxes (to make them solid brown), and then we used Angry Bird Plushes ($5 at Toys R Us) for the birds and pigs. I put down solid gray play mats under the boxes (to created a firm base) and colorful play mats for the kids to stand on.
On the other side of the room, I had two tables set up for smaller Angry Bird Games. The table that I just left in the floor really worked the best.
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| Angry Bird Game Pieces |
A week before the party, L and I decided to create an Angry Bird Pinata. It took the entire week, but I think the final product looked 10 times better than any of the ones in store... and my kids and I had a great time working on it.
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| E helped me put candy inside |
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| Green construction paper was our final layer |
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| Painted green |
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| Complete! |
Now that our pinata was finished, L and I added some Angry Bird decorations and we were ready to party!!
For an afternoon snack, we had cake (made by one of my good friends), ice cream, strawberries (red birds), blueberries (blue birds), pineapples (yellow birds), jelly beans (eggs), and sugar wafers (wood bricks).
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| Isn't that fruit beautiful?! |
I spent most of the morning rushing around to make sure the house was clean. In fact, when the first guest arrived, I realized I still had my pants legs rolled up from mopping the kitchen floor earlier in the day. Oops...
The kids arrived and immediately went up to the party room. I did my best to contain their excitement and energy, but after about 30 minutes the kids were all getting too wild.
So we headed downstairs for the cake, ice cream, fruit, and sugar wafers. My father-in-law did his best to entertain the kids and, after singing Happy Birthday, he sent the kids one at a time into the kitchen to get their cake and fruit.
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| Some of the guys! |
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| Birthday Boy! |
After that, it was back to the party room to break the pinata. I read a lot about how to string the pinata, so I felt like I knew what I was doing... well... the string broke (it was WAY to thin) under the weight of the pinata and we were left with a giant pig head without a string. I sat the kids down on the colored squares and I got their opinions on how we should break it. Most wanted to just beat it with a bat on the floor. This idea, did sound like it would work, but it made me a little nervous. So, we came to the conclusion that we'd just put it on the top of our boxes and see if we could get it to break by throwing the Angry Birds at it. I was pretty certain it wouldn't work, but it was keeping them from wrestling, so I was willing to drag out the pinata process as long as possible. :)
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| What are we going to do?! |
One at a time, the kids lined up and threw Angry Birds at it. And to our surprise, with some help from my brother, one of the ears came off (after the 3 or 4th child). So we distributed plastic sacks to the kids, and then my brother shook the candy out for all the kids to grab.
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| A little bruised. |
After all the candy had been taken, we went downstairs to open presents. In the past, we've saved opening presents for after the guests leave, but the kids had so much energy in that party room that I felt like it might help to get them in a different part of the house (with more play options). They watched L open some of his presents and then spent the rest of the time playing all around the house (with some of his gifts).
All in all, I think the kids had a pretty great time. And I'm pretty sure my kids will sleep good tonight... BUT, thank God I only have 3 children, and I have at least 3 months before I have to plan another Birthday Party. Hehe.
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| Can't believe he's almost SIX!! |
