Boogs 8th Birthday Skylanders Party

Boogs had a very busy birthday weekend.

His grandparents came down from Canada to help celebrate his 8th birthday. On April 5th, Boogs started his day with birthday balloons tied to his bedroom door. One of his classes at school had a field trip to the Austin Aquarium at 9 a.m., so we moved his birthday party to one in the afternoon. Grandmaman and Grandpapa took him to the Aquarium so I could stay home and get ready for the party. Boogs wore his homemade sting ray shirt to the Aquarium. Grandmaman said they had a good time. She even got to pet a bat ray.

Boogs was super excited for his friends to arrive for his Skylanders Party. Since it was Boogs' 8th birthday, he got to invite 8 friends over for a party. Details on the preparations for the party can be found HERE.

There were stations set up in the backyard with directions on the signs. You could earn a token for completing each station. By the end of the party you could have tokens for each of these sources: Tech, Life, Undead, Air, Earth, Fire, Magic, Water, and I made up a token for defeating the Kaos pinata.

Camo's Melon Smash: smash the melons to get a gumball Life source. Boogs liked this one. He said the melons were very easy to smash.

Prism Break's Puzzle Build: By the end of the party, this 150 piece Skylanders puzzle was complete. I was shocked that we did not lose any of the pieces in the grass.


3-In-A-Row: We played tic-tac-toe with the Skylanders characters I taped onto a Toss Across game.

Tree Rex's Plants: I think this was my favorite station to watch the kids complete. There were markers and paint pens for decorating small terra cotta pots. Most of the boys just wrote their name on their pots. The girls actually decorated them. Everyone seemed to like taking home the plant they potted.

Zap's Sharks Out Of Water: Boogs said this was his favorite station. There were two buckets about three feet apart. You had to use a straw, suck a little paper shark onto the end of the straw, and then transfer it to the other bucket. Look at how much Boogs' cheeks were sucked in trying to keep the fish on the end of his straw. I made sure all of the straws at the station were different colors so no one would use the same one.

Chompie Smash: I forgot about this station during the party. A few kids had already left when Boogs asked when we were going to do it. We tied a balloon around each kid's ankle. The object of the game was to smash each others balloons. Last person still wearing a balloon was the winner. This game got a little competitive.

Trigger Happy's Golden Can Shoot: This was a fun station!!! Use a foam water cannon to knock down a pyramid of cans. There were enough cans for three people to compete at once. Eventually, even the adults started playing at this station. My sister and I went a couple of rounds here. I did not get many pictures of the kids playing it because I was trying to keep the kids from shooting water at each other. It was kind of a chilly day.

Jet Vac's House of Air: The kids spent a lot of time in the bouncy house.

Spyro's Tail Pin: Each year, Boogs asks for some kind of Pin-the-Tail-on-the (_____) game. This year he wanted to pin a tail on the Spyro character. After the kids played, my teenage niece, her friend, and my mother took a turn.

Kaos Pinata: I was very happy with how this Kaos pinata turned out. When I was making it, I figured four layers of newspaper would be the right amount to make it strong enough for each kid to get a chance to hit it but not too strong for it to break. (The Frankenstein pinata I made a few years ago was so strong that my brother had to work really hard to smash it open after all the kids had a turn.)

Boogs hit it first. It had a gaping hole in the center of the face by the time all of the kids had taken a turn. Then, Boogs finished it off without a blind fold.


Hot Dog's Make A Wish: To earn a Fire Source token, you had to sing Happy Birthday to Boogs and watch him blow out the candle. I was really sad that I did not get a picture of him blowing out his candle.

I think Boogs had an excellent time at his 8th Birthday party.

We considered ourselves lucky on Sunday morning when it rained and thunder stormed. The storm cancelled our breakfast outing and Boogs' soccer game. Boogs ended his birthday weekend by going to his first hockey game with his dad and grandpapa. Boogs was worn out by the time his birthday weekend was over.

I sent Boogs to school with a lunch to match one of his new Skylanders Swap Force characters - Magna Charge

In the EasyLunchbox: Magna Charge drawn on Provolone cheese with food markers, Magna Charge letters spelled with radish, pb&j sandwich under cheese, dried apricots, raisins, salad with radish letters, and yogurt (not shown).

These are the blog posts that I used for Skylanders party ideas:
http://amyspartyideas.com/2012/06/skylanders-adventure-party-real-parties-ive-styled/ 

http://bestlifemistake.blogspot.com/2013/06/skylander-birthday-party-with-free.html

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/don_cristo/tags/skylanders/


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Skylanders Party Prep

Boogs' asked for a Skylanders Party for his 8th birthday. Of course I said, "Why not? How much work could it be?" Well, my son likes to plan parties. He filled me in on what should happen at a Skylanders party to make it like the game. He said, "We need to have stations to get the sources. You know, like booths at a carnival." Yep, clear as mud. He also asked for a Kaos pinata. So, we looked at several blogs that had posted about Skylanders parties and got busy crafting!

Toss Across re-purposed into a Skylanders game. Boogs chose three characters for me to cut out and put on the Toss Across board. The kids had to throw bean bags and try to get three in a row.

We made cans for Trigger Happy's Golden can shoot. The spray paint would not stick to the cans so I had to glue paper on before I could paint them. My husband and father-in-law ended up painting yellow and then spraying on a coat of glitter finish. It made the streamer paper practically waterproof. The kids stacked the cans up into a pyramid then shot at the pyramid with foam water cannons. The kids each took home a water cannon as a party favor.

I was making the pinata while my husband was making breakfast. Pinatas are always more work than you think they will be. For Kaos, I used a punch balloon as my base, ripped up a bunch of newspapers, and put on four layers of newspaper with a mixture of flour and water. It took several days to finish with the newspaper because it took a long time for each layer to dry before I could add the next layer.

I looked everywhere for peach colored streamers for Kaos' face but could not find any. So, Kaos has a white face. The little green paper mache items are melons for Camo's Melon Smash. They have large gumballs inside them for leveling up. The melons had electrical tape stripes on them to help strengthen them a little and make it harder to smash.

The completed Kaos Pinata. Boogs was happy with the result.

Each birthday, I freezer stencil a shirt to match the theme of Boogs' parties. Sklanders' characters were too complicated for me to make. Luckily, I found this inexpensive Skylanders shirt and just added the number 8 to it.

I cheated this year and bought cupcakes from Sam's Club. The only cupcakes they had without pink ones in the set, were cupcakes with Batman rings on the top. I made double sided cupcake toppers using a Stampin' Up punch. I put a Skylanders Swap Force character on one side and a Skylanders Giants character on the other.

Boogs spent quite a while trying to decide which character he wanted on his cupcake. We had to squeeze it in beside his number 8 candle.

Boogs worked with me to figure out what kind of game booths he wanted.  We looked through a couple of other blogs for ideas. Then he helped me plan what to write for each booth's sign.

 

The day of the party there was a 30% chance of rain. I put the signs in sleeve protectors to keep the signs dry. Boogs thought it would be a good idea to receive a token/badge for each completed activity. I taped baggies of tokens to each sign for the kids to get themselves.

Here are pictures of the stations before the party started:

The kids could earn tokens for the air source by jumping in the bouncy house and for fire by singing happy birthday and watching Boogs blow out his candle.

We had a ton of fun planning for this party. Boogs was so excited for his friends to come over and play all of the stations with him.

You can click HERE to see a few pictures of the party.

These are the blog posts that I used for Skylanders party ideas:
http://amyspartyideas.com/2012/06/skylanders-adventure-party-real-parties-ive-styled/ 

http://bestlifemistake.blogspot.com/2013/06/skylander-birthday-party-with-free.html

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/don_cristo/tags/skylanders/


Here are links to a few other fun parties Boogs has had in the past:
 
Minecraft Party

http://keithaschaos.blogspot.com/2013/04/minecraft-birthday-party_7.html

Bug Party 

http://keithaschaos.blogspot.com/2012/04/bug-party-flashback.html
 
Lego Party
  http://keithaschaos.blogspot.com/2012/04/boogs-6th-birthday-party.html
 


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