I'd like to share some pictures from Crackerjack's "friend" birthday party which we held this past weekend. The theme this year was Toontown, which I should probably explain is an online Disney game (www.toontown.com) in which the "toons" (mice, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc.) try to protect their fun and friendly town from the big bad "cogs" who are always trying to take over with their big ugly corporate buildings. (Hmmm, sense a political agenda there, lol?)
Needless to say, the kids play as the toons, and they get to pick their species, color, size, name etc. They then all work together (with other online toons) to "fight" the cogs with gags and funny jokes. It's an extremely child-friendly game (you can't communicate with the other players except by using toon talk); CJ almost always uses his allotted "video" time to play Toontown. Of course his brother plays it too as well as several of his friends, so that makes it all the more fun.
OK, so there's the theme all explained, now here are the pictures!
We had planned to have the tables set up on the deck, but a forecast threatening severe thunderstorms prompted us to move things inside (balloons and all).
We even moved the galvanized tubs of drinks inside just in case. I laid vinyl placemats underneath that colorful plaid blanket to minimize any moisture problems. The tub on the left held water bottles and lemonade juice boxes. The one of the left had the "hard stuff" -i.e. sodas!
Here are the cupcakes just after decorating. I baked up a yellow cake mix (Feingold-approved) and frosted the cakes with homemade buttercream frosting. On top I sprinkled all-natural organic jelly beans (again, EB-OK). The symbolism is this: in Toontown not only do you throw cupcakes at cogs, but you collect jelly beans as "currency" which you can use to decorate your toon home and buy your toon clothing as well as new phrases or gags.
As it turned out, the weather held, and a light cloud cover actually kept the temperature in check. So the backyard games were back on:
The first game the kids played was a variation of tag or a bit like ghost-in-the-graveyard. Upon arriving, all the kids became toons by choosing toon names (i.e. Captain Sniggle Puff, that kind of thing) which were then applied to their shirts (in the form of mailing labels). Bill and Mike (another dad at the party) were roped into offered to pose as cogs trying to stop the toons from getting the huge dollar bills taped all over the yard. The object of the game for the kids, er, toons - grab the money and get it back to home base (that large tree pictured there). If a cog tagged you, you had to freeze and wait for another toon to unfreeze you (by tagging you again). Once the bills were all recovered, the game was over and the toons all received megaphones as a prize. ("Megaphone" is another toon gag used against cogs.)
Camera shy kids, obviously. ;)
The next game involved water, always a hit on a hot day. This was reminiscent of a VBS game we had played last year. A wheelbarrow was filled with water and stationed at one side of the yard; across from it, equidistant, stood two buckets of the same size. The kids were split into two teams and given paper cups. On go, they had to use their cups to move water from the barrel to their buckets. The team that filled their bucket first won.
As you can see from CJ's face above, he takes his competition rather seriously. That's my little EB in front doing his part for the team. :)
CJ received some cool gifts, including this Toontown t-shirt with a message for all cogs on the back!
Crackerjack was insistent he needed this crazy red headgear for the day (the hands resembled toon hands, he said). He wore it for all of two minutes, lol! EB seemed just as "happy" to wear them, as you can see. Guess who ended up wearing them most of the day (mostly because I kept forgetting I had them on)?
Cake time! And yummy cold popsicles, too.
Crackerjack had such a great time, he loves being the center of attention!
These were the favor bags we made up. We started with black bags and decorated them with fireworks and golden star stickers. (On certain holidays, Toontown does fireworks every hour on the hour - my kids just love that part.) I used a gold metallic ink pen to write party guests' names. Inside the bags were all kinds of toon favors like marbles, jelly beans, duck beak whistles and paper money.
Well, thanks for stopping by and sharing in our fun! Once Crackerjack's birthday is over I know summer is really nearing its end. The next birthday will be Earlybird, just before Christmas - guess I have time to catch my breath before then. ;)
