Monday, February 28, 2011

craft-y party

So February is nearly over, but before we close the books on this month, I have to get these last posts in....

I went to NYC to spend a week in the freezing cold and get some quality time with my sister & her family. They celebrated my niece's 4th birthday with a theme of her choosing. And she chose an animal party, which required some kind of homage to penguins (her favorite), monkeys (her big sissy's fav) and fish (they both love) so we struggled as we are wont to do when the theme is seemingly plucked out of thin air. And being a party planner for a 3 yo going on 4 is no easy task. We learned quickly that the key is not to let her in on any details too soon, or she'd want to change them.

We had 3 crafts planned, and murphy's law was in effect so one of them was dropped...
1. We had them color old school shrinky dinks and they got to watch them bake in the oven. good times! When they came out, they had personalized backpack tags or tags for whatever they needed.

2. Then they played 'pass the present' which is like musical chairs. A gift was wrapped in 8 or so boxes, and each time the music stopped, the person holding the present gets to open. Instead of just one person getting a gift at the end, we included a little prize for each girl. Which translated to an unplanned craft, it was a bead necklace set, and everyone set off to make their masterpiece.

After this, the natives were getting hungry, so we relented on the crafts and brought out the cake and 'za.

3. The penguin craft was 86'd which is just as well, since I think my nieces were happy to get to do that one on their own.

And a good time was had by all!!