Monday, October 13, 2014

Frozen Party

For Ellie's 11th birthday, she wanted a Frozen party.

I don't know how to do a birthday party except like this: I look online and save ideas I find interesting, often using them as inspiration for my own versions of games/food/decor.  I figure out when and where and who.  Then I break the timeslot down into appropriate blocks of time for each activity.  It's all about manageable chunks.  :)

1) Crafts and Photo Booth.  All three of these activities turned into Big Deals instead of ice breakers/warm-ups as guests arrived.  The primary craft I had planned was Frozen snow globe rings.  I figured some kids wouldn't be into that, so we also had recipes for glittery silly putty and fake snow.  The kids wanted to do both of the main crafts (we didn't get to the snow) and they both turned out awesome.  The photo booth was the surprise hit of the day!  Paul hung white sheets and blankets in a corner and decorated the area with white Christmas lights and some swirly glittery blue things I found at Michael's.  I thought some props would make it more fun, so I knitted an Elsa hat (glittery off-white hair and long braid), set out a few carrots, and bought some other things from the party store: long satin gloves, a glittery scepter, a tiara, sticky mustaches, blue and glittery hair sprays, and glittery/glossy makeuppy stuff.  The kids kept coming back to this station throughout the whole party!  Paul figured out how to print out photos from his phone directly to our printer and he taped them to the entertainment center so kids could grab them at the end of the party.

   


2) Do You Want to Build a Snowman?  As the crafts wrapped up, all the guests went outside and counted off into teams of about 4.  One person on each team was the snowman, another hustled over to a box of supplies (scarves, hats, carrots, toilet paper, and black paper "buttons" with tape on the back).  Teams raced to build hilarious snowmen. 




3) Freeze Your Face.  Doughnuts on strings!  Paul hung powdered sugar doughnuts on strings from a cord across our driveway.  The kids had to each eat their doughnut without using their hands.  Hilarious! 4) Frozen Elbow Tag.  This was really just elbow tag, which is way more fun than the more thematically appropriate Freeze Tag. 5) Snowball Fight.  I really wish I had pictures of this one!  I ordered "snowballs." Paul bought three large pieces of craft styrofoam at Lowe's.  Across the top of two of them, he cut crenelations.  The third piece he cut into four triangles to make supports for the "castle walls."  The kids threw snowballs back and forth at each other across the driveway.  Each wall was 4'x8' and we sprayed the already white styrofoam with sparkly paint to make them look more frozen.  6) The kids were ready to sit down inside for a bit so we skipped Anna vs. Elsa (red light/green light) and went inside for Let it Go (telephone) which was a perfect change of pace.7) Fortunately, that's when the pizza arrived!  We ate lunch, sang to Ellie over cake and ice cream, then watched her open her "Coronation Gifts."  She insisted on reading each card aloud, very slowly, so this took a while.  But I was so impressed and proud of her!The food - excepting the pizza - was just as themey as everything  else about this party.  We had blue and white rock candy crystal sticks, sparkly marshmallow pops, yogurt-covered pretzels, string cheese snowmen, melted snow (Sprite or water), Frozen jello ice cubes, purple grapes, and baby carrots.  The ice cream was vanilla, and the cake was, well, it was North Mountain with Elsa on top, of course!  Links to most of the food inspirations above on Pinterest.