Boys Camoflauge Birthday Part 2

I promised the follow up on our birthday party, so here it is, you can read about part 1 here:

The most important part of a kids birthday party is the activities.  And the biggest activity challenge was keeping the kids inside and busy on a winter weather day!

• We played a dress up relay game where I took a large basket and filled it with my husband's hunting clothes and put it at one end of the room.  At the other end we lined up the kids into 2 groups.  One person from each team had to run to the basket and put 3 items of clothing on completely, and then run to the back of the line and sit down before the next team member could go.  The first team with all of their members dressed and sitting won.  The clothing ranged from pants and jackets to hats and gloves.  Some things were easier than others to put on.  We had lots of laughs!!

• Another fun game was the hunting box.  We filled a tote full of dried beans and the kids had to find certain mountain wildlife.  Most of the toys we used were from the dollar store.  Snakes, frogs, and other animals.  Now that the party is over I will use it for an ISpy Letter box to help my kids work on their letters and numbers.  Please ignore the ripped label...oops.
• Next we lined the kids up and took turns shooting a Nerf gun at a paper bullseye.  This was fun too!
•  We also had the kids draw a picture of the mountains or their favorite animal.  -- in order to get all of the kids to do this (use more time) we gave them a camoflauge notepad and pencil when they were finished.

• My little sister also did camoflauge face painting.   They girls could have pink and red and the boys were the typical brown and green.   
• Another game that we wanted to play was a veggie fear factor (I found this on an unkown blog--thank you!). Where each kid had to try a veggie they have never eaten before.  And when they were finished they earned a Smore on a Stick--a chocolate dipped marshmellow rolled in graham cracker crumbs--YUM!!!
• And finally we ate cupcakes and icecream, opened presents and sent them all home.  Whew!

This ended up being a great party that the kids are still talking about. And the parents are too.  Only one warning I bought the facepaint at a party store and one parent had trouble getting it off of his daughter's face, and told me that the rest of the day he kept asking her if she felt okay, because her skin was tinted green.  ;)

I love being a parent!

Boys Camoflauge Birthday Party Part 1

I mentioned in my last post that my son's birthday was last week and in blogger style I went a little overboard with decorations!  We had a fun and crazy group of 17 kids!! 

My husband is a hunter and my oldest son loves to go with him on deer and elk hunts.  So there really wasn't a better party theme for his 8th birthday.  We were careful however, to keep the hunting theme really tame so we would not offend any parents.

We started by brainstorming typical hunting/camping gear and settled on backpacks.  I found some camoflauge fabric and we made all 17 kids a mini drawstring backpack.  This was the most time consuming part.  We (my little sis and I) followed a tutorial on Youtube to learn how to make them and they were really easy.  The only thing that I did differently was to surge all of my edges and the straps we used were just heavy fabric folded and surged on one side.  The eyelets that we used on the bottom were from Wal-Mart.  I would definitely reinforce these if you aren't using a heavy duty fabric.

The backpacks were a huge hit!!  The kids of all ages loved them. 

On to the rest of the decorations...

Minutes before the party started I arranged everything on our buffet and took a few shots.  Unfortunately, I wish I could go back and tweak a few things but, being the procrastinator that I am this is what I got!

I made and printed all of the banners, labels, and cupcake tags myself on the computer and printed them. 

Cupcake tags printed on paper and glued to toothpicks. 

To make the banner I just trimmed down some sheets of construction paper to fit in my printer and printed directly on it.  Then I cut out the letters and taped them around a strand of twine.  I loved how the construction paper curled a little more than regular paper.  I think it gave the banner a little more dimension. 

I also made little labels for the mini water bottles.  I wanted them to write their name on each one.  If I could go back I would just type the name on each, it's much faster!!

We played lots of games and for every game that the children played they earned goodies to take home.   Like these pencils and notepads

Stay tuned for part 2 of this party and I will tell you all of the games that we played and other fun activities!

It was so much fun!! 

PS.  You can read more in part 2 here

Linking to:

Sugar Bee Crafts