Kid Party Survival

It’s a crazy month when you have two kids having a birthday one week apart. For now things aren’t too bad. Little man just turned two so no need for the kid party just yet. Besides, being born so close to the fourth of July, He got a parade on his birthday. One week later his sister turned five.

With yet another older sister in the house “kid parties” are a familiar topic around here. Sometime they can discuss possible themes 6 months or more in advance of the actual birth month.

This year, the now five-year-old, picked; princess Fiona, Tinkerbell, mermaids… no, no wait…
M & M!!!!!
That’s right she wanted an M&M candy theme party. Ok by me!!!!

So let’s get started. Every kid party needs; some decorations, a craft, a few games, snacks, a treat or cake and goodie bags. Since my new addiction is making T-shirt dresses (even for their dolls) I had to make a dress for the birthday girl. Finding the fabric was not as easy as I thought it would be. The M&M fabric was discontinued in 1999. Aaaaagh!!

No worries. Through the magic of the internet, I was able to find some fabric and get it shipped to me 2 weeks before the party. It was green non-the-less, HER FAVORITE COLOR!!!!

With the kids off to camp for a few hours I was able to make the dress with only a two year old as a witness.

With the party girl decked out in her best M&M attire we needed to continue the theme for our guests. I found a font I liked and printed out a pattern then traced it on some felt. I used “tack it over and over” to make appliqués for each guest to wear on their shirts. (In the invite I asked that guests wear a shirt to represent their favorite M&M color).

With that out of the way I was ready to move on to the décor. Since a few of the guests had older sibling I needed to make it simple for the Moms so I thought we could have the festivities in the garage and let the older ones play in yard while the little ones partied in the garage. My brilliant friend likes to use tablecloths as a backdrop for her kid parties so taking a cue from her I covered the garage in bright colored tablecloths to set the scene for some M&M fun.

With some bright colored plastic plates and a several gift bags I was able to make it rain M&Ms in the garage. I glued a few plates together and cut out 60 some little “m”s and then glued them onto plates and gift bags

and suddenly we were in M&M land.

Now for the crafts and activities. Coloring pages were a little more difficult to come up with than I thought. You’d be surprised what comes up when you google “m”!!?!!?!! I like to use Google images and usually, I can find what I need, especially if I type in “outline” or “cartoon” after the word. Since I couldn’t find coloring pages for M&Ms I printed a few M&M images out then traced them onto blank paper with a sharpie and then made several copies.

I even personalized one of them to hold a card for the birthday girl. Coloring is a great activity to have the kiddos do while they wait for all the guests to arrive. It keeps them busy and quiet while you wait.

After coloring, we moved onto M&M bingo. In a word document I made a table and then copied and paste multiple images into each block to create a variety of cards for bingo play.

They weren’t the most aggressive bingo players I’ve ever seen but they did do a good job at marking off their cards.

I found some foam smiley face beads that I called “M&Ms” and the good little kiddos made their own M&M necklace for their craft project then we were off to the next game.

Instead of pin the tail on the donkey we played put the M&M back together. A few sheets of poster board and looking at an image of Ms. Green and I was able to create a suitable likeness.

Part of the fun for me was watching the face of my slightly OCD five year old as the blindfolded kids put Ms. Green together.

Needless-to-say she quickly repositioned her after the participants were finished placing their body parts where they thought they should go. (Poor kid; I should start her therapy now huh???)

After this fun it was time to move to the patio for some cup cake decorating. (I like to slide an activity in wherever I can. It eats up time and keeps the little hands busy) Rather than the traditional cake I opted for cupcakes and asked that they be plain so that the kiddos could decorate their own.

A few tubes of icing and a bowl or two of M&Ms and chocolate chips and they were good to go!!!!

I was actually surprised that they were almost more interested in decorating than eating. There were towers of icing and toppings.

Toss in a few drink boxes and it’s snack time. (I did have some trail mix earlier loaded up with what else but M&Ms??? And I had to have something special for the Mommies… some high-test iced coffee. I’ll post about that soon.)

All in all a great party. One word of advice, keep your checklist with you! Once everyone was gone I realized that I had more prizes to fill their goodie bags with. Oh well, passing them out will be an adventure for us to have in the next day or two. With the kid party done all I have to do is survive the Family party this weekend. Now, where is that bottle of wine?????