Fourth Birthday Party

G had a big party on Saturday. We invited 4 kids and their parents to join us, so there were 6 kids in our house for the big day.

G is in love with My Little Pony these days (as are Paul and I), so she requested a My Little Pony themed party. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on commercial-stamped Hasbro-approved birthday stuff, so I mostly just went DIY.  This is the first time we've had a "real" kids party with friends invited, and it was pretty fun.

The kids that came were all younger then G (a three year old, two two-year olds and two 20-month-olds) so I knew I couldn't go too nuts on complicated games or have too long of a party.
We made a pony puppet craft, played pin-the-tail-on-the-pony, did a bean-bag toss and Paul juggled a bit and made balloon animals (thank goodness for a clown in the family!). We ate food, we ate cake.

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

 

And, of course, opened presents.

I thought I'd give a little run-down of how I did it all. It was fun to plan and, actually, not all that hard!

For the craft:

I printed and cut out pony colouring sheets, which the kids then coloured and taped popsicle sticks to. It was a really easy craft that even the littlest of kids could do.

The games:

I made Applejack out of some orange and yellow bristol board.

It's hard to tell by the picture, but she's about 2 feet tall. Here's my trick for getting an image that big: I look online for an image of the pony I want, then zoom in on the screen till she's the size I want it to be in real life. I take white paper, put it right up on the computer screen and then (very gently) trace out the image. When it's a large image like this one, it takes some tracing-then-scrolling to get the whole thing. I'm sure you could also try and print it out magnified, but I don't own a printer!

Then, I take the tracing and cut it up into colour elements and cut out the outline onto the coloured paper.

Then I assemble all the pieces together and voilà! To tell where to line things up, you can just hold it up to the computer screen again to make sure everything lines up.

I then made 5 copies of her tail so the kids were able to try and tape it onto the correct spot. 

The cake was a similar process:

Except I made it with marshmallow fondant instead. Which, obviously, is a bit harder to work with then paper!
The great thing about making something like this is that I made Fluttershy (the pegasus pony on the top of the cake there) several days before, so I wasn't panicking at the last minute.

I made her entirely, then just stored her wrapped in wax paper in the cupboard.

I don't have any photos of it, but the other food was pizza rolls, pigs in a blanket and two trays: one with a rainbow of fruit and one with a rainbow of veggies.

Lastly, the décor:

Honestly, it looks pretty awesome in this picture, but it didn't hold up well. It was pretty much gone by the end of the party.
What is it? Tablecloths. 3 plastic dollarstore tablecloths and 6 balloons. I cut each of the tablecloths lengthwise and taped them all to the ceiling.
Really, the tape was my downfall. Scotch tape does not like to hold things, even lightweight tablecloths. My original plan was going to be staples, but our stapler failed. If I were to do it again I would either use really small nails or some kind of double-sided foam tape. Also, I wouldn't have it be the last thing I do!

So, there you have it! My beautiful oldest girl had a very fun fourth birthday party. And, well, about an hour after the party, this is what she looked like:

It's over. Sigh.