I mentioned in my post about Audiobooks that we absolutely love the Castle Glower series by Jessica Day George. So much so that Claire decided she wanted to have a Castle Glower themed birthday party. It's hard to find castle party things that aren't princess or knight themed!! We had to get creative with our decor and activities since Party City doesn't exactly sell Griffin themed party supplies ;) 

Kenley drew Castle Glower and a griffin... 

Rufus... 

If you have read my blog for a while, you know that I will completely change any room in our house to accommodate for my party ideas... Our living room transformed into the castle dining room...

Claire doesn't like cake so we went the easy route and had store-bought cake balls with ice cream cups... 

We had 3 activities at the party, the first was to decorate gingerbread castles... 

(I threw away all the Mario stuff) 

 The finished castles...

Then we did a piñata.... 

 Our last activity was to find Griffin eggs. Since Griffin eggs are hard to come by in our area we used hatchimal eggs for the girls and dinosaur eggs for the boys! Here are all the kiddos making crazy faces after we unleashed them upon the house to hunt for Griffin eggs... 

Happy Birthday my sweet CLo!!! 

Claire's 7th Mystery Birthday Party

Since the day after her Space themed 6th Birthday Party, Claire has been asking for a "Mystery" Party. She was always adamant about the theme but vague in what she actually wanted the mystery to entail. We finally decided on a scavenger hunt to find the treat bags, a few mystery flavored foods, and question mark decor. We had hoped to be moved into our new house in time for Claire's Birthday and Christmas but it didn't quite work out so Auntie Amy saved the day and let us host Claire's party at her house! 

The mystery Oreos turned out to be Fruity Pebble flavor and they were delicious.  

The girls decorated these ? picks from Hobby Lobby with sequins to make them look a little bit more festive and less like the gender reveal party they were intended for! 

Magnifying glasses were scattered about for decor and clue solving...

While we waited for all of the guests to arrive I had these party hats from Hobby Lobby and our favorite Mr. Sketch markers out..

Here is a list of all of our scavenger hunt clues... 

Clue #1 (toy truck in the playroom)

I wish you luck! Your first clue is hidden under a toy truck!

Clue #2 (the boys bedroom)

Work together and you can’t lose, go to the place where the boys snooze!

Clue #3 (TV room)

Go where you can watch shows, cartoons, and movies too, check right next to this for the clue I left you!

Clue #4 (Bathroom) 

You will need these lights to see, your next clue is hidden in the place where you go pee!

(There was a pile of blacklight pens for them to take with them to search for the next clue) 

(This clue was written in invisible ink, the children had to use the blacklight pens to read it)

Clue #5 (Lego Room)  

The next clue is tricky, its in a room that’s filled with toys used to build!

Clue #6 (Under the kitchen table, this clue was printed backwards and there was a box of spy glasses under the table so they could read the backwards clue) 

Your next clue will be a treat, look under where we sit to eat!

Clue #7 (Bethy's room)

A good nights sleep is best, look where Bethy takes her rest!

Clue #8 (Playroom book shelf)

This ones easy, just take a look, you will find your next clue next to a book!

Clue #9 (Kitchen soap dispenser) 

The hunts almost over, but no need to mope, the next clue is hidden under the kitchen soap!

Clue #10 (Fridge) 

Keeping food cold is important you see, this is the place where the milk may be!

Clue #11 (Claire had the clue in her pocket)

Brrrr… It was cold in there! Go sing Happy Birthday to Claire!

Clue #12 (A Key Lockbox)

Up from 8, Down from 9, Down from 9, Up from 3

Clue #13 (Under a couch cushion) 

The next clue is hidden where it’s comfy indeed; a place to relax, watch tv, or read!

Clue #14 (Pantry) 

The hunt is almost over, but before you relax, check the place where we store the snacks!

Clue #15 (Fireplace) 

Is that all the clues? Oh no its not! Try a place where it gets hot!

Clue #16 (Oven) 

This is your last clue! Go and look in the spot where we bake a lot!

Somehow I missed getting a picture of the treat bags but they were filled with tiny magnifying glasses, tattoos, mystery flavor Airheads, mystery flavor Push Pops, and mystery flavor Ring Pops (We bought any thing that was mystery flavor! haha). The kids also got to take home the blacklight pens and spyglasses! 

 Happy 7th Birthday CLo!! 

Claire's 6th Birthday!

 Back in December we celebrated Claire's 6th Birthday with a Solar System party! Last Summer, the theme of the Practicum camp that Claire went to was Space themed and ever since then she has loved space and the planets! It worked perfectly to have her party be Solar System themed because we were able to do lots of projects that corresponded with our Cycle 2 memory work!

Since Claire's birthday is just 5 days before Christmas, we have started a little tradition in making a Christmas tree match Claire's party theme. We painted various sizes of styrofoam balls, added glitter, and hooks to make ornaments for her tree.

Lollipop plants for her cake! Party city has lots of lollipops that you can purchase individually! Wilton sells edible star glitter that made the perfect asteroid belt! 

For the backdrop I painted a 4x4 board from Home Depot and then marked off spots for Brian to drill holes in the constellation patterns that Claire chose (Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Leo the Lion). It was quite an ordeal getting the lights to be just so! I ended up hot gluing them in! We gave her "her Moonie" first thing when she woke up so that we could add it to the backdrop. She loves her "Moonie" and she sleeps with it on every night!

 I printed a picture of Claire's face and tapped it to this blow up astronaut! It was one of my favorite parts of the party! Her face is just so darn cute!!

 We had to serve astronaut ice cream and astronaut ice cream sandwiches!

Cute space themed lollipops from Oriental Trading. 

We had various craft stations set up around the room for the kids. We had a straw rocket station, an astronaut coloring page, constellation lacing cards, a constellation identification station, and some toy astronauts to play with.

The pictures just don't do these planets justice! They were my favorite part! I painted different sizes of lanterns and we taped up a yellow circle tablecloth to be the sun! 

I placed glow stars in different constellation patterns for the kids to search for. I enlisted Claire to help add some random jewel stars. Instead of placing them randomly she put Big Dippers everywhere. She loves the Big Dipper :)

 

I think this might have been my favorite party to date! 

Shout out to my amazing husband and mama for spending an entire evening hanging black plastic on the walls, hanging the planets up for me, and every other task that I threw at them to make my party ideas come to life!!

Claire's Honey Bee 5th Birthday Party

Our sweet little Claire turned 5 on December 20th! 

She wanted a Bee Birthday!

Mom and I made dozens of these little bead bees for the party...

I took down all of our Christmas decor in this room for the party... At least this year I didn't make Brian move the tree!! :)

I used food coloring to recreate the look of honey for our flower arrangements... 

Party Favors purchased at the Farmers Market...

You know I love a theme :). The party was at 2 so we didn't need to serve a meal but I did serve some fun snacks with the cake. A cheese platter with fresh honeycomb and various hexagon shaped crackers to accompany the cheeses, pineapple and grape skewers, honeycomb cereal, and string cheese (because Claire LOVES string cheese)....

I cooked her cake in my Pampered Chef mixing bowl following their instructions for making a Barbie cake :)...

I made the candles for her beehive cake out of rolled beeswax sheets...

The kids made black and yellow bead bracelets, made bees out of pipe cleaners, and another little bee craft with yellow Easter eggs...

Happy Birthday Sweet CLo! We love you!