This week heralded the third birthday of my youngest. Three! How did that happen? Our Mr Men school has created an obsession with all things Mr Men so of course she wanted a Mr Men party!
I had a few thoughts, put together a few ideas, and set to work. All was against me, or so it seemed, as a tree in our garden situated about 2 meters from our house split in two during Friday’s storm. This meant Saturday was spent frantically trying to find someone to cut it down (it was a huge fir-tree) before it fell on the house. It was still very windy on Saturday and it was swaying very precariously. The whole day was a bit worrying.
As I usually do my shopping on Saturday and the party was on Monday, I was behind from the start! I put in an order online, which they delivered Monday 11am. The party was at 3pm! Deep breath.
Gary took the children out to the park to burn off some energy whilst I party prepped. I usually prepare days in advance (not everything, but a lot). This time I was unable to prepare anything before hand due to lack of supplies, which meant I had a measly 4 hours to do everything in. Another deep breath.
I don’t have many photos of the actual party because, although I took them, they don’t seem to have come out.
First up were the aprons. As most of the activities were going to be messy, I asked the party goers what their favourite Mr Men character was, photocopied them onto transfer paper and ironed on the transfer to some plain cotton aprons:
I did the same to decorate the bags B3’s friends would be taking home. The party bags were cotton draw string bags to which I added a transfer of their chosen character:
I then made some Mr Men chocolates, which I packaged up into a bag with a Mr Men decoration. These were placed into the party bag as one of their take home gifts:
Mr men biscuits were next. I made them using the Mr Men playdough/cookie cutters we already had:
I packaged these up with some icing pens in a little bag and again placed into the going home bags (keeping some for my guys to do after the party:
Next I briefly decorated the living room. Time was of the essence so it was simply done, with B3’s birthday blanket hanging at the window and some Mr Men balloons hanging at the beams. I put out the aprons, hanging them on the chairs and placed three colourful table covers on the table:
The first activity for the children was to be collage making. I decorated the table cloths by drawing some Mr Men characters with black pen. I then filled brightly coloured bowls and cups with decorating chunky pens and all sorts of collaging materials and of course lots of glue. I used Pritt stick so the cloths would remain fairly dry with glue and I drew the pictures down the centre of the table to ensure there would still be room for all the other activities I had planned:
The second activity was for the children to make their own chocolate patty cakes. I placed some pre-prepared mixture in colourful bowls (a third of a pack each) and measured out the liquid ingredients into corresponding cups. Each child would be given a set of wet and dry ingredients and a wooden spoon to mix. Once mixed they would place them into the little cups I had bought especially:
Into a variety of colourful muffin tins I popped lots of different cake decorating bits and pieces for the children to use to decorate the patty cakes they had made earlier in the party. This would be for one of the last activities before settling down to watch a Mr Men DVD:
The third activity was going to be a charades type activity, where a player takes a card from a bag and mimes the Mr Men character pictured on it. Gary went through all our Mr Men playing cards and came up with a good variety of characters, whilst I cut out a foam Mr Happy and stuck it onto a brightly coloured draw string bag:
Next up was to prepare everything required for the pizza decorating activity. I cut some pizza based into a generic Mr Man shape:
And then placed lots of different topping onto some brightly coloured plates. I cut out shapes of eyes, noses, mouths, and arms from ham and cheeses, along with a selection of different shaped vegetables the children could use:
Whilst these were cooking it was T12’s job of leading musical statues and pass the parcel, which he did using a Mr Men music CD. I had covered a pack of Mr Men stickers in sheets from a Mr Men magazine:
And we had a selection of other Mr Men themed prizes:
T12 rigged the whole thing, ensuring all the children won something.
After eating the pizza, playing with the balloons and decorating their chocolate cakes, they all calmed down (slightly) by watching a Mr Men DVD and playing a Mr Men card game:
Happy birthday, precious girl. We love you so much!