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A few week’s ago, we had a birthday party for Snuggle Puppy. I am still a bit confused as to why he wanted an army theme, as it is not something he is interested in in the least, but it was easy to plan.

Food. I planned the food around what Snuggle Puppy likes, so it wasn’t your typical kid food. He likes ethnic food, so I served samosas, pakoras, and bahajis. He is a fan of seafood, so I made crab rangoons. I also made a few other appetizers and veggies.

Instead of cake, I made cupcakes in camouflage wrappers and The Husband and I iced them with three different colours to make them look like camouflage. I added little plastic walkie talkies and other army related items to the tops of some and flags to others.

We had a small cupcake mishap, so there weren’t as many in the end as there had been when we iced them, but there were enough to go around!

 

 

 

 

 

Activities. Our daughter, Miss Optimism set up a face painting station and gave willing party guests camouflage faces. Fred and The Husband set up an obstacle course in the backyard and once guests were settled, The Husband put them through “basic training” on the course.

I don’t remember the course exactly, but one at a time, they had to run over, crawl through the tunnel, go up the balance beam, down the slide, over to the climbing wall where they went up that, down something to the other side, through another tunnel, crab walk quite far to the finish where they rode a little car down a ramp.  When everyone was finished the obstacle course (complete with The Husband barking orders at them like a drill sergeant would), they all did a running race. Once their training was complete, they were made honorary soldiers.

Now that they were soldiers, they were given their first mission: to rescue their fellow soldiers who were MIA. Fred had hidden dozens of plastic soldiers in our trees. The kids all enjoyed finding the army men. They were each able to keep any they found.

I also had put some toy army men in two clear plastic cups that I had taped together. The kids could then guess how many army men were in the cups. The one that came the closest got to keep all of them. I forgot to take pictures of these last two activities.

Extras. When party guests first arrived, they were given hats and dog tags that had a place to write their name and rank.  For party favours, each guest was sent home with a bag containing army related items such as plastic compass, binoculars, activity map, soldiers, parachute men, and a few candies in camouflage bags.

a picture of the happy birthday boy with his cousin K. We were blessed with good weather and a great turnout. It was a very fun day!!!

Einstein wants to be a fireman when he grows up, so a fireman theme party seemed like the perfect way to go for his birthday this year.

Cake.  For the cake, I used the Firetruck cake pan by Wilton. I wrote Einstein’s name and age underneath in icing. I was also able to find fireman themed candles such as fire hat and boots that I added on top of the cake.

Food.  For our party, I served chilli because we had learnt on a field trip that firemen tend to make a lot of chilli and spaghetti in the firehall. I also served things like raw veggies and chips.

Decorations. I bought firetruck plates, napkins and cups and used a red plastic fire hat and toy firetrucks as decorations on the table.

Activities.  The kids played “stick the badge on the fire dog” and made a fire truck foam craft that I bought as a kit. We also had little fire house drills. One game we thought of but didn’t have time to do was to pretend that a house (made from a cardboard refrigerator box) was burning (flames made with orange, red, and yellow tissue paper) and have them pretend to put the fire out.

Extras.  I was able to find fireman themed treat bags and filled them with fire chief badges that I found at the Dollar store, candy, and toy fire engines for the party favors.  I was also able to find a fire chief shirt for Einstein to wear at the party.

For his birthday party, our son Snuggle Puppy chose a Mickey Mouse theme.  The cake was a big hit!

For the cupcakes, I made a spice cake, iced with buttercream, and then cut three circles out of fondant to make a Mickey Mouse head on the top of most of them.  I don’t usually make a cake AND cupcakes for the kids’ parties, this party was extra special as it was Snuggle Puppy’s first real birthday party ever.

I made Mickey Mouse shaped Rice Krispie treats on lollipop sticks and displayed them by hiding a Kleenex box inside a gift bag and poking the sticks in holes in the bag and box.  I handed them out to the kids as they were leaving.

The birthday boy loved the celebration just for him.  We had fourteen kids here, plus our seven, and seventeen adults.  For food, we served Mickey shaped hamburgers with the fixings, a layered dip, potato salad, Asian salad, devilled eggs, crackers, cheese, pickles, pickled asparagus, and cheese dips.  It was a beautiful day, so the kids played outside most of the time and I didn’t need to organize many activities.  We played Mickey-Mickey-Minnie (like duck-duck-goose) and I had Mickey party colouring sheets for the kids with markers set out.  It was an easy theme to work with as far as colours and decor go.  Most importantly, Snuggle Puppy absolutely loved all of it!!!