Horses!

Age of Birthday Girl: 9 years old
Age Range of Guests: 6-12 years old
Gender of Guests: mostly girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

When our daughter was nine she was in love with horses.  We managed to get her a few lessons but it is not easy around here and it gets expensive very quickly.  However, we indulged her interest by having a horse-themed party - no pony rides though!

Cake: We covered a 9x13 cake in green frosting for grass.  You could cover it with coconut flakes dyed green for more texture but we had two party guests with tree nut allergies so didn't go that route. The fence was found at a hobby store, but you could also just use popsicle/craft sticks.  Dirt inside the corral was made from chocolate cookie crumbs. The gate was part of a horse play set we already owned, as was the bale of hay & bucket.  The flowers are part of our Playmobil collection.  We found the horses and riders at a dollar store, all together as a set. We bought extras as party favors for the goodie bags.

Activities: Once again Dad put on a good show in working out party games.  The kids were asked to participate in a variety of activities related to caring for, or being a horse.  They pretended to be horses who were rolling around on the grass and competed to see who could roll down our front hill the fastest.  They scoured the yard to look for "hay" in the form of the longest blade of grass. They made sure there was enough water for all the horses in their care and had to count & cart water bottles from one area to the next.  The kids also completed an obstacle course jumping over objects to represent bales of hay, water hazards, fences, and other items in a horse jumping show.

(The water bottles were left over from a water shortage we had recently experienced when a major water main broke in our area - thousands were without clean water for drinking for a few days. All the large gallon jugs were sold out so we were left with individual water bottles instead.  They came in handy for the party which was, fortunately, after the water was working again).

Goodie Bags: Party guests received a cloth bag for their party favors.  Inside was a selection of candy, some plastic horses & riders from the play sets, a variety of horse stickers, a horse-themed self-inking stamp, and a plastic bracelet with a horse charm.

Hello Kitty

Age of Birthday Girl: 4 years old
Age Range of Guests: 2-7 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: Invitations for this party used a simple cut-out of Hello Kitty glued onto pink card stock. The party information was included on the back.

Cake: We took a basic round cake and decorated it using the image of Hello Kitty that we found on some stickers as sort of a template. Frosting was used to make the face and whiskers, with jelly beans for the eyes, nose, and the flower in her hair. We added some sprinkles for extra color and had cupcakes with the candy in the flower shape. We also found some Hello Kitty candles which worked very well on the cake.

Games & Activities: We had a craft for the kids as they arrived. They each had a foam bookmark to decorate as they wished with stickers, markers, and ribbon.

Then we played a game of pin-the-bow-on-Hello-Kitty that we had created for the event. We drew a large Hello Kitty on poster board and then made bows with sticky tape to use in the game.

The other game was a version of Bingo using pictures of Hello Kitty doing various activities. We created the board games by cutting & pasting pictures on the computer into different sequences and combination on each card.

Goodie bags: It was easy to fill bags with all sorts of fun Hello Kitty items from stickers to pencils and erasers to jewelry, etc. We added a few candy treats as well.

Rapunzel

Age of Birthday Girl: 6 years old
Age Range of Guests: 4-9 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

This was inspired by a wonderful twist on the Rapunzel story found in the book called "Falling For Rapunzel" by Leah Wilcox. If you have not yet read this book you really should. It continues to be a family favorite even though our kids have outgrown picture books.

Cake: We attached two cookie sheets and covered them with foil. Two 9x13 cakes (one chocolate, one vanilla) were placed end to end on the long cookie sheet and frosted to form the tower. One end had small sections cut out to form the top of the towers. For the turrets and balcony railing we used Lego castle pieces from our girls' collection. The long braid was designed using gummy peach rings (by Trolli), cut into thirds and then placed to look like interwoven hair. Frosting vines were graced with large flower candy sprinkles.

Games & Goodies: The kids were given long door handle foam pieces to decorate. We had a variety of stickers, markers, ribbon etc. for them to use. The original idea had been to make them look like Rapunzel's tower but really, they could do whatever they wanted with their craft. It was fun to see the various designs develop.

The main event was the acting out of the book for the party guests. Our three children played the roles of Rapunzel (played by the birthday girl), her maid (little sister), and the handsome prince (big brother) as it was narrated. It is a delightful story of Rapunzel misunderstanding the prince's request to let down her hair resulting in hilarious responses, much to the frustration of the prince.

Following the short skit the kids formed teams and had to unscramble and decode mixed up messages to figure out the target sentence which was "Are you ready for cake?". They were!

Goodie bags included princess and prince stickers, sparkly pencils and notepads, bracelets for the girls and bouncy balls for the boys, gummy candies, and various other candies and chocolates.