Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Dinosaur Themed Party

dinosaur invite

My oldest daughter has been into dinosaurs for ever. Every year she said she wanted a Dinosaur themed Birthday Party. Then, she’d push it off until the next year. Last year she finally had her Dinosaur Themed Party. A twist on ours is that it wasn’t plain Dinosaur, it was because of my daughter’s love of the book “Dinotopia”. On that invitation I added those pictures from the book! My daughter loved that touch. The dinosaurs right behind my daughter are from when we went to the show “Walking With Dinosaurs”. I knew we were doing a Dinosaur Themed party and so I made sure to get a picture of my daughter in front of some of the great posters there. Perfect.

dinosaur walk

We like to make a big deal of walking up to the house. It’s fun, plus then people know what house the party is at. Here my youngest was helping to draw the dinosaur tracks that we had going up to the door. I love having the kids involved as much as I can. The results are less professional, but so much more memorable for them!

dinosaur entrance

We had so much fun after we cut back a tree of ours, we hauled the branches to the front yard and made a Giant Dinosaur Nest. **True story, after the party the eggs were gone and it was just a huge empty nest. It attracted an eagle to my yard! We don’t live in an area that this is a normal thing at all!! **

dinosaur eggs 2

The main reason for this nest was because what my daughter wanted most for this party was huge dinosaur eggs. The thing about having kids that have grown up with me, they assume I can make anything crafty and so they ask for some interesting things (you should hear the Halloween Costume Requests!). She and I made these together. They are just paper mache balloons! We got the large size of balloons, blew them up, and went to town covering them all! I did a lot of layers because we wanted these to be really sturdy. When they were all dried we cut an opening. We then inserted all the goody bag stuff into these balloons. We covered them in green tissue paper, which nicely covers up the cuts made for the openings! We filled them with everything dinosaur we could find. There were dinosaur build a scene stickers, glow in the dark dinosaur skeletons, inflatable dinosaurs, plastic dinosaurs, and more.
dinosaur treasure hunt (2)

Dinosaur Treasure Hunt. This started off with tiny dinosaur eggs. These were just regular eggs that I had hollowed out when I needed them for cooking. We boiled them all with green food coloring. Some I left in longer then others so that they were all different. I also added salt to one pan for an extra cool look on some of the eggs. I had 2 dozen of these. In just 2 of them I put a clue. One clue for each team. I scattered these eggs all over the backyard. The clue before this one told them they had to stomp on the eggs to find the clue. This was especially tricky because it was night time! dinosaur treasure hunt skeletonsAnother clue told them that each team member had to dig up one dinosaur fossil to receive the next clue. We had dinosaur skeletons hidden in the sand box. This was a slightly older kids party so the clues took them through the neighborhood a little bit. The prize was the giant dinosaur eggs in the nest out front. The kids so loved their eggs that they carried them around a bit before they tore into them!

dinosaur birthday party paper mache egg gift bags

dinosaur egg treasure

We had dinosaur eggs that you had to break open with a hammer, to find the dinosaur inside.


There are also those dinosaur eggs that you put in water to dissolve the shell and then the dinosaur pops out!


dinosaur cakee

The cake was easy peasy, once I found a dinosaur set at the dollar store! Score! My kids always love to help me make their cakes. This was just a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, then the dinosaur set was put on top. My daughter loved how it turned out!

Rebecca



PS I think we chose to do all of our Birthday posts now because we have a ton of Birthdays during the next week (thinking back 9 months I guess it is cold in November, in Utah...thanks Mom and Dad!). So, I have to say Happy Birthday to those wonderful people (and my parents for even bringing me into this wonderful family) in my life who make it all worth it! ;) I love you all!

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Anjeanette here. I had to laugh at the part where Rebecca's kids think she can make anything. My kids do that to! It was a great party Rebecca with lots of fun ideas. Oh and Happy Birthday to Rebecca, myself and Erika all within a week...August 19th through the 26th!!! And we have a nephew with an August birthday too. Love you too!!

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3 comments:

Sondra said...

As always, I love all of your creative ideas. I DO think you can do anything (your children are right). Thanks for sharing all of your inspiration and creativity with us - so we can be great Moms like you! :-D

RootsAndWingsCo said...

Yes, somehow we are suppose to make something out of thing. LOL You should hear the things my oldest wants me to make.

I think the key here is that it does not matter that what we do is perfect, it is that we do it and make it the best we can.

Happy Birthday to my SILs

Katrina

Mama King said...

Great ideas! Love the huge nest and scavenger hunt! So glad the birthday girl has such a crafty mama!