Ninja party

With four boys still at home we have our share of boy themed parties. This year our son turning 8 wanted a ninja party. Our 15 year old son was happy to help create this party for him.

For food we had a lot of finger foods done with an Asian theme for ninjas. Sushi made with snack cakes and crispy treats, fruits and veggies and plastic swords for serving.

We made swords out of duct tape and foam pipe covers that we bought at the hardware store. These turned out great and were safe enough for the boys to play fight without hurting each other.

Place settings were pretty easy to find with a ninja theme and we made cupcakes and used the party swords for decorations. The boys used the sword for play with their action figures afterwards.

Now for the fun part. Our son set up a training camp for the younger ones to teach ninja skills. Each participant had a mask to tie around their head and their foam sword. Then they began the obstacle course.

We had balloons with ninja faces on them set up around the area and each person went through 'fighting' the balloon ninjas. They had a great time with this activity.

We also tied a red string around the play structure to represent lasers. Each guest had to retrieve several flags from the laser area with out touching the string. It was fun to see how each person choose to go through the course. Some went under, some over and some a combination.

We had see saw beams to walk across for balance.

and a strap to climb across without touching the ground.

Each person had a great time and wanted to go through the obstacle course many times over.

Jungle Safari Party

Our son wanted a jungle party so we set out to make that happen. This was a lot of fun to put together. There is so much available and so many fun food ideas to incorporate.

We hung streamers around the room like jungle vines. One of our older sons did most of the decorating and had a lot of fun doing that for his younger brother. We made trees out of brown wrapping paper by crumpling it up and stapling it to the walls. leaves were made of construction paper.

I bought a set of animal face masks and tails. Each child picked what animal they wanted to be and we clipped the tails on their clothes. We also bought toy binoculars for animal sightings.

We had plastic animals around and snakes in the trees.  We served lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and animal crackers.

We kept the cake very simple and plastic animals on top. but inside the cake was made to look like zebra stripes. that is done by alternating spoons of white cake mix batter with chocolate cake mix batter in the pan before baking.

The kids went on a safari hunt and played with the binoculars and face masks. We had some activities for them but they mostly had fun with playing safari hunts on their own.

We had a cardboard safari car that they colored and then put together to play in as well. that was a lot of fun too.

For the meal we made a snake out of sub sandwiches and we had a veggie tray made to look like a lion. Both were big hits with the kids.

Jungle juice served in monkey faced bottles with snake straws.

And then the biggest hit of the party was the chocolate fountain. We called it the mud bath and the kids all loved dipping their  fruit in the chocolate.

The party was a lot of fun and great memories.

Cars

Our son wanted a cars theme party for his 8th birthday. We bought some of the decorations from a party store and made others. I used a black plastic table cloth on the table and white duct tape to make a road. We used checkered flags and orange cones down the center to add to the theme.

We stacked chocolate donuts to look like piles of Luigi's tires.

The main cakes were actually cupcakes decorated to look like Mater from the movie Cars. I made the cakes in regular muffin tins and also in mini muffin tins. Frost one regular size cup cake with chocolate frosting to be the main body. Frost one mini cup cake to be the bed of the truck and one mini cupcake turned upside down on top of the regular cupcake to be the top of the truck. We used m&ms for the lights and eyes and white gum squares for the teeth. The tires on the truck were Junior Mints. We tried various different chocolate cookies and candies to find the ones that looked like the best size for our cupcakes. We frosted the windshield with white frosting and added eyes. It was hard to get the frosting smooth but the boys loved the shape and eating them.

We used car theme stickers for an activity inside before going outside for the race activity.

We set up a race track outside and each child had a cardboard box that we spray painted to look like a car. We put black paper plates on the sides for tires and printed out faces for the front. We had a few races and prizes for the winners and then the boys just played with the cars and had a lot of fun just running around with them.

The party was a lot of fun and our son loved it.