Around here we like a good party. I mean who doesn't love to party. Especially on your birthday. Right.
Well, the problem we have is that the peeps b-day is four days after Christmas. Seriously, stinky. Oh, and did I mention it's also my birthday. Double seriously stinky.
When they were little we would have their party right after New Year. It's not like they even knew. But then as they got bigger the problem became bigger. Friends couldn't make it because they had holiday plans. Also, who wants to get presents all at the same time. Spread the love.
How to solve this problem? Well a friend of mine suggested half birthdays. You celebrate at the halfway point. For us this meant we would celebrate in June. Hello!!! So since our kids turned three that's just what we've been doing and it has been fabulous. Instead of being broke for one whole month now we are broke for two. HAHA!!
This year the peeps didn't want a joint party. Of, course that's largely in part because they will not agree on anything. Notice that I didn't use the word can't. I think they disagree on purpose. But that's just my opinion.
SO themes. What to do? Well since we were doing multiple parties I wanted the same theme so I could reuse, but also so no one felt slighted. Oh and when I mean multiple parties I meant three. One for each of them with their friends and one with all the family. Yeah we won't be doing that again.
Fortunately I was able to find a theme I they liked. We decided to go CAMPING. In our own home of course.
Sis really wanted the separate parties so as part of her way to
convince brother she told him that he could have his party first. Each
of them had a sleepover and the got to invite 5 friends. Yes 6
six-year-olds sleeping at our house 2 weekends in a row. I still
haven't found my mind.
The nicest thing about their
parties is we had the exact same things for each party. Same foods,
same beverages, same theme. Easy peasy.
Be prepared for lots of pictures.
I tried my hand at making the cupcakes. Sewing I can do all day long with my eyes closed. Baking not so much. But oh well, it's not like the boys cared how they looked. The concept was to be flames under s'mores, but orange icing was super hard to make. So this is what we ended up with.
What was funny was I made this and then put them on the cupcake display with all the food and after I did some things I came back to check on stuff. The icing slid off the cupcakes and ended up all over the counter.
Each boy got a flash light. These were good for telling scary stories and staying up super late. Around each light we tied a note that said, "Stay safe at Camp Evan."
In between the rain we sent the boys on a scavenger hunt. They had a compass to direct them and a bag to hold all their finds. They had the most fun finding bugs. Surprise, surprise.
We had the table all set for the boys when they arrived. We started the evening off with dinner.
We bought camping themed paper and made tags and signs for all the foods. E's party colors were orange and blue. I made my own bakers' twine that I tied around everything. I bought white embroidery floss. I wrapped it around a ruler and then colored small sections on both sides. I made E's to match his party. Same with sis. Super easy and super cute.
The bug juice was a big hit at both parties. Just some Hawaiian Punch and the kids were in heaven. We went through a ton of it.
For our food I incorporated some healthy with some yummy. What I found to be amazing is that all of the kids preferred the fruit skewers. They ate every one.
One of our favorite things are sliders. Mini hamburgers on Hawaiian rolls. They blow out the door here.
My biggest concern with this party was s'mores. We have a chimina which I had thought about letting the boys make s'mores in, but 6 boys + fire = scary. So we made our own. We put two large marshmallow between graham crackers and then dipped them in melted chocolate. Stuck the skewer through them for less mess. The nice thing about this is that they could be made ahead of time.
Instead of hot dogs and all the possible mess, oh and the fact the hot dogs are kinda gross, we made mini pigs in a blanket. With little smokies and crescent rolls these were a huge hit.
Our favorite snack. They were tasty and they looked good.
The other thing we had was a trail mix bar. This was a huge hit with the boys. Each boy got a mason jar and they could pick whatever ingredients they liked to make their own custom trail mix.
For our custom trail mix we had:
marshmallows
chocolate chips
raisins
peanuts
banana chips
pineapple chunks
teddy grahams
m&m's
The boy had a super party. Instead of goody bags we gave each boy a Nerf gun. The biggest problem was it rained the whole evening. Nerf guns in the house. Sure thing, but only for your birthday.
A casualty from the nerf gun fight.
Come back tomorrow for pics from the Glamping Party.
