Yes, my daughter is now 7. Time really flies!! We gave Reagan her choice of venues... a skating party, a Michaels party, a pottery-painting party (my favorite choice), another Libby Lu party, etc. She said, "I want it at home." Ugh. So after some Internet-searching for a cool party idea, we came up with an Around the World party.
My goal was to keep the guest list to about 6 or 7 girls. Ha! I can never take my own advice with parties. Once we made the list, we realized we had to invite a few more to include the remainder of the Brownie troop (can leave anyone out). Then we had to invite a few more to include the rest of the girls in the class. Couldn't forget that handful of friends outside of Brownies and class that Reagan adores. Anyway, after all was said and done, we had a total of 15 girls! YIKES!
The invitations were boarding passes inside a mini folder explaining the party and showing a map of the continents. Unfortunately dummy me stated that we were hitting all 7 continents... including Mexico which I ridiculously counted for South America. Duh. I had to email all the moms and apologize for that... I was embarassed. We had one regret, and two girls were no-shows. So at 11am, we had 13 girls in our house. I felt so bad... I actually set the girls down in a circle and discussed the rules of the party! What a party-pooper I was... RULES!? But I tried to mention them in a nice way. They were the rules of the "travel agency". No touching the "locals" belongings. No yelling seeing as though we were a full plane and it would be too loud. No roughhousing since I didn't want to send anyone home due to injury without completing the trip. Etc., etc. The rules were listed on an itinerary sheet that also showed the map of the world on the back. I had empty stars at each of our stops which they filled in as we went along. They learned the rules after decorating their Souvenir Bag.
We took off from Reagan InterNational Airport (ha ha ha) on Hollar Airways. Our first stop was downstairs in China. We learned a little about Chinese New Year and then the fun began. The girls had 143 balloons (we popped one out of the gross) in red and black to pop! As you can see below, Tommy thought that was a little loud! They were some tough balloons, but inside 12 of them were puzzle pieces. Once we found the pieces, we were able to assemble a picture of a Dragon Costume in a parade. Then they collected their souvenirs for their souvenir bag: Chinese folding fans.
From China we went to Mexico, where we broke a pinata and filled up pinata loot bags. Then we collected our souvenirs: maracas.Pizza had arrived, so we went to Italy! We ate pizza and listened to Dean Martin and various others sing Italian songs (Volare, That's Amore, Finniculi Finnicula, etc.) I loved just prancing around singing the songs! The girls then collected their souvenirs, soccer notepads. Okay... that was a stretch, but Italy loves soccer, right?
Then we went out to the cold garage for... what else... Antarctica! The girls did a little matching game trying to find two matching numbered plastic penguins. It got a little confusing and my own daughter broke down in tears since Mommy screwed up the directions. But, after the confusion, all girls left with their penguin souvenirs. :-)
We headed downstairs to safari in Kenya. We played animal charades where the girls got a chance to act like an animal and have the others guess, then we played a game where teams had to link together two parts of cards to make either a picture or a word... then they had to match the picture to the word (i.e. aardvark, chimpanzee, etc.) The winning team won 2 lollipops each. Then I gave the rest a lollipop, too. They collected their safari souvenir: binoculars.
After Kenya, we scooted across the room to Australia, where we made our very own boomerangs. (The girls colored cardboard boomerangs.) I was a little worried someone would attempt to throw them... but no one did. Whew! I don't know that the cheap cardboard ones would return... but they did do funny turns in the air (yes, I tested one and nearly knocked a ceiling light down.) The boomerangs were their souvenirs.Then we headed upstairs for our last stop in North America: New Orleans for MARDI GRAS! The girls donned their metallic masks, tinseled crowns, listened to cajun music (and a jazzy favorite... When the Saints Go Marching In), and ate King Cupcakes. I explained the tradition of a king cake. Although I had actually found and purchased little plastic babies to bake into the cupcakes, I decided not to risk a choking hazard. So, I used gummy bears. For the record, even after the cupcakes are out of the oven and have cooled for a few minutes... they are still too warm for little gummy bears. I thought I'd attempt to squish the bears into the cake while it was still warm and moist. So I did. Five minutes later I returned... no more bears. They ALL melted. So I had to replace them all. Fortunately the holes had already been made. I gave everyone a red gummy bear, except one. The girl with the green gummy bear won. I gave her a silly Mardi Gras jingly pen. I think the king cupcakes were a hit. Messy since they needed to find the bear with their fingers rather than eat it... but it was fun.
After Mardi Gras, we watched Reagan desperately open 12 presents in 15 minutes. And she made it just before the first mom arrived to pick up her daughter!Lots of High School Musical and Hannah Montana gifts and Bratz and Barbies and crafts... Reagan was a pleased little girl! She even got her first Rescue Pets epets.com dog. So now the kids are officially on Webkinz (with what? 30 Webkinz??) and Shining Stars (with about 6) and now ePets.com. They now have a ton of pets to keep up with!
All in all, it was a quick-paced, activity-packed party, and the girls were great! I was very happy with it (although I felt bad about the silly penguin game mix-up). And now, I begin to think about Tommy's party (May). I'm thinking of an indoor park party. $100 all said and done sounds good to me... and with no mess in the house!
1 comment:
You continuously amaze me with your creativity. That sounds like an awesome kids party. I don't blame Reagan for wanting a party at home when you make them so awesome!
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