Our Three Girls: Nicole's 10th Birthday Party

While Nicole is growing older, I'm thankful she hasn't shown an interest in things too old for her like some of her peers. She loves PBS Kids and one show in particular, Wild Kratts. I had all kinds of ideas for her party but Nicole was adamant. She wanted a Wild Kratts party. I was like a deer in the headlights. There is hardly anything you can get with a Wild Kratts theme! Fortunately, I was able to find a few things and she was happy with doing a general "safari animal" theme for the rest.

The party was so exciting (as you'll see by this long blog post). We hope Nicole understands we are celebrating her and who she has become. (Click here for a post on Mommy's thoughts about this.)

That's why I usually decorate the entry with pictures of the birthday girl. Today was no exception.

The Central California Parent Magazine where her first birthday picture was featured on the cover. Surrounding it I placed a few baby pictures and several school pictures.

The original "birthday hat" she wore on her first birthday.

Around the house I put other pictures of Nicole.

And that brings us to today!

We were going to do pizza but then I found the fun idea of doing a "snake" submarine sandwich. So we just had this slithering through the rest of the side dishes.

Daddy made eyes of olives and a tongue with twirlers.

Ants on a log

Monkey bites

Jungle Vines aka Veggie Straws

Jungle Vines

Hippo Dip

These "gorilla grapes" were such a huge hit! It was almost worth skewering my hand. (Ouch!)

Gorilla Grapes

These unshelled peanuts were a last minute idea but, wow, the kids went crazy for them!

Elephant snacks

Jungle Juice! (Sherbet punch: ginger ale, sherbet and pineapple juice)

I was soooo nervous about there being enough cake! But it was perfect; just a few slices leftover. Nicole LOVED her cake and all the kids thought it was pretty cool, too.

Even the inside was safari!

We had a great turnout! Britt and I made Wild Kratts vests for each of the kids. These were a little time consuming but not hard at all. Daddy had a great idea and made Nicole's just a little special:

As the girls arrived, an impromptu concert broke out in the living room. Several of the girls are in honor choir with Nicole. This is one of the songs they are singing for an upcoming concert.

If you aren't familiar with Wild Kratts, these are the vests the Kratt brothers wear. They get a "creature power" disk and, after touching an animal, put the disk on the circle of their vest and - poof! - they become that animal. So, for games, we had creature power disks...

The crazy picture!

One more

For the first game, the kids put on a "butterfly" creature power disk. Then they picked a partner to wrap them up like a cocoon (in toilet paper) and break free. We played some fun music during the activity. It was a lot of fun!

Action shot: breaking free.

The next creature power disk was "Cheetah tag." For this game the kids put a cheetah tail (animal print pipe cleaner) in the back of their pants. While the music played, the kids tried to grab each other's tails. We played several rounds of this!

Our final creature power disc was a polar bear. I thought this would be a quick game! I froze twelve bags of water. Unfortunately, I stacked nine of the bags and, even in the deep freeze overnight, they didn't freeze. So we only had three bags! So we just used the three bags and thought we would set a timer and the person who could stand on the ice the longest won. Well, these kids are CRAZY! They just stood there and stood there and stood there! We finally called it and they got off the ice packs. The kids had a blast dancing to "Frozen" music while standing on the ice but this game was a draw. No winner could be declared!

Well, Holland (in the middle) was probably the smartest kid. She did jump off right away!

About halfway through you can see Mallory dancing to the music (she LOVES "Let it Go" song!) and you can hear Allyson declare she has to "go to the bathroom or I'm going to pee my pants." Yep. My girls. :)

Finally it was time for cake and ice cream!

And then presents! Holland and Darcy's mom, Sarah, made her a special birthday "creature power disc" ribbon!

Panda sleeping mask to match her friend, Katrin's.

Kid President book!

Four of the girls were able to stay overnight. They had fun painting nails, playing a game of "lightning bug" hide and seek, and having popcorn and m&m's while watching Wild Kratts.

Finally it was time for sleep... by the fire.

I wanted the big girls to have their slumber party by themselves. Allyson wasn't very happy about that idea. Daddy was going to have a slumber party with her but she cried and said, "I want to be big!" She was pretty happy when I offered her to have a slumber party with Mommy in her bed. She... and Lucy... were out within five minutes!

These kids went to bed at midnight and were up by 7:30. 7:30!! Daddy made them blueberry pancakes and bacon... Nicole's choice.

Notice the matching panda masks on Katrin and Nicole? Agh. I forgot to get a picture of them together.

By the time pancakes were over, Britt and I were spent. But the girls were craving some more games. So Daddy set up some target practice for Nicole's new nerf gun. (The same one he shot me with last night.)

Kate loved playing with Lucy and Cookie, the guinea pig.

Then we did blind makeovers. Nicole didn't want her makeup done but Allyson DID!! So Bethanie put on a blindfold and the other girls gave her directions on how to put the makeup on Allyson. It was pretty funny.

Oh. And Mallory wanted makeup too!!!

Then we played a game of "Quack Quack Who's There?" The person who is "it" closes their eyes or is blindfolded (or wearing a panda sleep mask) and the other kids switch the chairs they are sitting in. Then the person who is "it" sits on someone's lap. The person tries disguising their voice and saying "Quack Quack." The "it" person tries to guess who it is. If they are right, then that person is now "it."

A little more watching Wild Kratts (we got Nicole a DVD set of the show) and it was time for the rest of the kids to go. I forgot to take pictures beforehand of the goodie bags so it looks pretty picked over here. I hit Target on just the right night ... 70% off the $1 bins! Most of these items were .30 each!! Each kid chose one each of: animal books, two types of learn to draw animal books, an animal noisemaker (the moms will hate me for those), and, of course, they took home their vest and creature power discs.