Sunday the Babes turned 3. I thought it would be fun to have a bug themed party. On her actual birthday we just had some ladybug cupcakes. They were super easy to make. Just chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing (she loves chocolate) and a store bought edible ladybug on top. I found the edible ladybugs at Hobby Lobby for around $2 and couldn't resist. This would be so much easier than my original plan (found HERE on Pinterest) to make the cupcakes look like ladybugs.
On Monday while the older kids were at school, we had a birthday party for her and a few of her friends.
I sent out these cute invitations using Evite, inviting her friends (and their moms) to a Ladybug Picnic.
BUG THEMED FOOD
Ladybug juice - lemonade with frozen blueberries
Caterpillars - grapes on a skewer
Ants on a Log - celery with peanut butter and raisins on top, extra ants (raisins) on the side
Worms in Dirt - chocolate pudding topped with crushed Oreos and a gummy worm sticking out
Stick Bugs - pretzel sticks
Butterfly Sandwiches - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into triangles and arranged to look like a butterfly
The food was easy to prepare and kid friendly. The Worms in Dirt (also called Dirt Dessert) was a big hit.
BUG THEMED GAMES
I drew and colored a ladybug onto a large piece of paper. I cut out spots, eyes, antennae and a mouth from card stock. The kids took turns taping the pieces onto the paper to make a bug. As you can see, their version differed from my version, but they had fun and that's all that matters, right?
Itsy Bitsy Spider Game - For this game, I used painters tape to create a spider web on the floor. I also cut out shapes to represent the sun (yellow circle), the rain (blue raindrop) and a waterspout (a house with a downspout drawn on it. I made a set of shapes for each kid, again I didn't want any fights if they had to share. I explained to the kids what each shape represented and had them place them anywhere on the spider web. Then we sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. Each time we came to the word 'sun', 'rain', or 'waterspout', they had to sit on stand on that shape.
Bug Toss - I had a bunch of plastic bugs and let the kids take turns picking up a bug and tossing it into the red bucket. This game was really simple and best of all they really liked it.
Spider Maze - I moved the dining chairs out from the table a little and had yarn wrapped around and through them to create a maze. Then just let the kids crawl through it. They had fun going over and under the chairs. The only rule I had was don't get on top the table.
Bug Tag - We did not play this game because it rained earlier in the day and since it involved the kids running, I didn't want to do it inside. I had some fairy wings, butterfly wings, and bee and ladybug costumes. I was going to have the kids dress up and fly like bugs trying not to be caught.
After the kids burned off some of their energy by playing games and having some free play in the playroom, it was time for cake.
LADYBUG CAKE
A friend let me borrow her Wilton ladybug cake pan (affiliate link) which can be used for lots of other types of bugs as well. My husband and I tried to make our cake look like the Wilton cake pan one.
I don't know how close we got, but at least you can tell it's a ladybug right?
I started off putting pink icing on the cake and then my husband took over after he saw how unprofessional it was looking. I used pink icing because I figured it would take a lot of red food coloring to turn the white icing red, and it would still look like pink anyway.
To make it look red, we used some Wilton Color Mist food color spray (affiliate link) before adding the chocolate icing for the ladybug head and feet. We used some decorative licorice, Hershey kisses and edible pearls for the finishing touches. And by we, I mean my husband, who was using tweezers at 11pm the night before the party to make this cake look just right.
BUG THEMED GOODY BAGS
I printed off a cute saying and glued it onto some bug scrapbook paper.
I put the saying, some plastic bugs, some bug stickers and a bunch of Hershey kisses into a snack sized zip loc baggie for a take home party favor.
This party was fun to put together and nothing about it was very difficult. OK, maybe the ladybug cake, but my husband took care of that for me.
One party down and one to go. Sweetie Pie's birthday party is next Saturday. She wants an American Girl Doll theme and to invite all the girls in her class, plus some from last year's class. I hope I can put together a fun party for her and 15-20 of her friends. Wish me luck.
