Alvin and the Chipmunks Birthday Party

We went to see "The Squeakquel" over Christmas break and now Kaylee is having an Alvin and the Chipmunks party for her birthday. I found out that McDonalds had the Chipmunks and Chipettes for their Happy Meal toys. Of course, I was too late to buy any, but had the idea to ask friends for them when they were tired of them and about to throw them away! We now have an assortment of toys for some games and for cake toppers!! Thanks everyone!


I made a poster of Alvin, Simon and Theodore for a decoration, since I couldn't find any decorations anywhere. It turned out pretty good!
I decorated the living room with streamers and balloons in red, blue, and green. I also hung up some music notes that I cut out of black poster board.
When the kids showed up for the party, I had coloring pages of the Chipmunks and Chipettes for them to color. When everyone had arrived, we got to work making and decorating our craft, a microphone. I took toilet paper rolls and had the kids cover them in black construction paper. We then took a styrofoam craft ball and covered that with foil. We taped the foil wrapped ball onto the toilet paper roll. I had stickers and sticky foam shapes for the kids to use to decorate their microphones. They had fun doing this. I then took a picture with each child holding their microphone while they stood beside the Chipettes poster that I had made.For games, I made a poster of Theodore with a hole where his mouth is and we called the game "Feed Theodore his favourite cheese puffs". I bought some small orange squishy basketballs that the kids attempted to toss into his mouth. Some of them fed Theodore and were so excited!
I made a poster of the Chipettes with Brittney holding a microphone. I made extra microphone stickers on Avery Sticker paper and the kids played "Stick the Microphone on Brittney. I blindfolded them and turned them around and they had to see if they could get the microphone where it belonged. They wanted to keep playing this game over and over again!

We also played "Hunt for Alvin", a game where the kids each got a chace to hide an Alvin McDonald's figure in the living room. The child who found it had to yell out "ALVIN" and then they got to hide it next.


We also had the kids playing Freeze Dance to the Alvin soundtrack.

We had cake in the colors that Kaylee chose. I made the cake look kind of like a stage with the figures from McDonald's placed on the different levels.
For goody bags, I found some "Alvin and the Chipmunks" coloring books at Michael's. I also put in some cheese puffs, a pack of bubble gum and a candy skewer that I made up. This was a fun party and the kids had a blast!

High School Musical/Swimming/Sleepover Party

For Jenna's 9th birthday, she wanted a High School Musical Party, she wanted to go swimming and she wanted to have a sleepover! We decided that she could have a party at the pool and then we rented a room there for cake and dinner afterwards. We let the girls go swimming for 1-1/2 hours and then they came out for pizza and cake.

We used red tableclothes on the tables in the room at the rec center and had red and white balloon centerpieces to try to tie into the High School Musical theme. We had pizza, fruit and veggies and chips for dinner. After dinner I gave the girls a High School Musical Quiz and the girl with the most answers correct got to pick out a prize first from the prize bucket (High School Musical stuff - notebooks, pencils, diaries...), the next most correct answers got to choose next and so on.

After the quiz we had cupcakes. I just swirled on the icing and sprayed it red with a Wilton icing spray. You could taste the spray a bit, I probably wouldn't use one again. I put HSM stickers on toothpicks and put those in the cupcakes.After the cake, Jenna opened her gifts and then we played one final game. I played HSM music and the girls passed around a present. When the music stopped, the girl holding the gift got to take off a layer of wrapping paper. Lots of layers of paper...until the final girl opened a box with a candy for everyone.
Goody bags before leaving included their prize from the earlier game and a HSM pen, HSM tattoos and HSM stickers as well as some candy. This was the first party we've had outside the house and WOW, easy cleanup - no huge mess at my house.

HOWEVER, we did let Jenna have 3 friends sleepover. They got a HSM pillowcase that I had made with iron on transfers I had found and they got to sign eachother's pillowcase with fabric markers. The girls also watched a movie (NO, not High School Musical). In the morning they had pancakes for breakfast and then went outside to play until their parents came to pick them up. Easy...everyone was happy and had a great time!

Mario Party

Ethan loves playing Mario Kart on the Wii and he asked for a Mario birthday party for his 7th birthday. I scoured the internet and found a few sites that gave me a bunch of ideas. I started planning this months in advance. Mario decorations are absolutely impossible to find!! I therefore had to handdraw my decorations. I am not an artist, but I printed off a small image of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Funky Kong (my son picked 4 of his favourite characters). I made a grid (horizontal and vertical lines) on the small images and then drew a grid onto my large cardboard paper. I was then able to make my large characters by drawing what was in the small grid on the big grid. Not as confusing as it sounds.We had our party outside and I decorated the garage doors and our trailer with the things I had made, as well as with red, green and yellow streamers.
Star Coins

Funky Kong

Yoshi
Luigi

MarioI made a Mario Kart Wii Activities Poster so the boys would know what the plan for the afternoon was.

Poster welcoming the boys to the party.

The plan was to split the boys into teams and have them play some games. When each boy arrived they were to find which team they were on (Luigi or Mario) and get a hat. I bought green and red hats from Oriental Trading Company when they were on sale after Christmas. I bought white felt and cut out circles and then cut out either an M or L and glued them onto the hats. Very easy to do and a great thing to take home.

The boys were then supposed to make a guess at our Mario Coin Count. I filled a jar with chocolate coins and whoever guessed correctly got to take home the whole jar of chocolate coins. Lucky boy!! Happy parents:)

After that, the boys got to decorate a Mario Star Cookie. I made yellow icing and gave them all candies to decorate with. We put the decorated cookies in baggies for them to take home.

The first game we played was Yoshi's Egg Hunt. I had my husband take a whole bunch of plastic easter eggs to the park and hide them in the grass. We took the boys to the park and gave them all bags to collect the eggs. Each player on the team with the most eggs received a plastic gold coin. They were to save these until the end and the player with the most gold coins would win a special prize (Mario Kart candy).

The next game was Balloon Battle. We threw green and red balloons all over the ground and the kids had to pop the other teams balloons. Team Mario had to pop green balloons and Team Luigi had to pop red balloons. This game was over very quickly. Another gold coin for the members of the winning team.

The next game that we played was Target Practice. We had filled up water balloons and the two teams lined up and, one at a time, were given a balloon to throw at the opposing teams target, a poster with members of Mario's team or Luigi's team. Everyone won at this game! The boys just had a blast getting to throw water balloons!

Next was the all anticipated "Spin the Wii Wheel". I had made a prize wheel with different prizes on it. The boys could win candy for things like Triple Green Shells (3 green gummy candies), Triple Bananas (Banana candies), Triple Red Shells (3 red gummy candies). They could also win plastic gold coins (grand prize at end of party for the most gold coins), and other random prizes. They all spun a few times on this. Very exciting!!

After the excitement of the Wii wheel, we had cake and then gifts. I made a Mario Kart cake. I found Mario driving a Kart so I used that, as well as a figure of Yoshi and Luigi that I found. I found some mini mushrooms from Scoop N Save that fit the theme as well.

For gifts, I had all the boys sitting on a blanket and had Ethan on a chair with an empty seat beside him for the boy whose gift he was opening. This always seems to work well. The other kids can then see the gift being opened.

After that the boys took another spin on the Wii Wheel and then we counted everyones gold coins to see who would win the grand prize. We also checked to see who the winner of the Mario Coin Count was and handed out the goody bags - their star cookie, their hat, some chocolate coins and whatever they won from the Wii Wheel. This was a fun party to plan and I think Ethan had an awesome time!!!