Jadelyn's jungle

So, Jadelyn turned 5 on Tuesday! Going against my original plans, I decided to throw her a birthday party. Even though she had a big ol bash last year and I had thought we would only do the party thing every other year, we thought she needed some special attention this year. Her whole world changed when Jordan was born and we thought she needed a really special 5th birthday. I think we succeeded.

I learned alot from my party throwing experience last year and I kept telling myself, keep it simple, she's only 5. It turns out I'm not very good with simple. :) I had a few goals #1 She will not cry or get sad at her party #2 She will feel special and have fun #3 her friends will have fun #4 I'll stay within my budget #5 I will get more rest the night before her party than I did last year and I will be organized and prepared. Well, I think I accomplished the first 4 out of 5 :)

I'm into theme parties. Her's was a Jungle Party. The sign on the door read "Welcome to the Jungle" in big dark green jungle letters, underneath it read "Happy 5th Birthday Jadelyn" and of course there was a tree frog and a lion. I had did her invitations and then copied them as opposed to creating it all on the computer, that's unusual for me. They would have looked much better from the puter, but these were cute and fun. Pictures you ask? Not yet, but they will come, I promise. I got the idea from familyfun.com and drew a big Asian Elephant head on 8.5x11 paper and the trunk was long and wide extending to the end of the paper. The trunk had the party info on it, the face had a way cute elephant face and the trunk folded up accordion style onto the face while the ears folded over the trunk. On the outside of the first ear I wrote "You're invited" then you open that flap and it exposed the next ear "to Jadelyn's unforgettable . . . " then you open that ear and the inside of the left ear read "Jungle" and the inside of the other ear read "Jamboree" She wanted to make sure I included "Let's monkey around" and "party animal" somewhere in the text. I drove ehr around to the ones who lived relatively close and she got to go up all by herself and hand out the invitations. She loves that.

For the party fun, I looked up all the jungle party examples I could find online and mixed and matched ideas to best fit my girl, our space, and our budget. There was a go diego go party that did an adventure to find baby jaguar. It was quite in depth with backpack a map and even a phone call from Diego. I didn't want to make the party character specific, and plus, I'm striving to keep it simple right? So I modified the idea.

When the guest arrived she would open the door, thank them for coming, and take them to the living room where I had lion king playing. Once everyone arrived we turned off the movie and everyone got to introduce themselves and their animal friend they brought along. Then they put their stuffed animal in the petting zoo. I loved interacting with the kids. Then we played animal charades by picking out a card from our animal memory game. Once the animal was guessed then we all acted out the animal (very fun!) After the game we went to the dining room for juice and goldfish crackers.I had zoo animal plates on a green table cloth. Everyone got to pick which animal they wanted to be and as I handed out the juice i made sure to say "this is for Treton the Lion" They really liked that.after that was finished we went outside and played catch the lion by the tail (similar to duck duck goose, but you grab the lions tail instead). Then I said it was time for cake and ice cream and they could follow the leader into the dining room and the cake would be on the table. When we all got in the cake was nowhere to be found and I acted concerned. They helped me look a little bit and then I exclaimed "Oh no!, I think In know what happened to the cake" I got a whole bunch of excited "what?"'s Before the party started, the monkeys came and told em they wanted to eat Jade's cake. I said "no monkeys, that cake is for the party animals." I think while we were playing catch the lion by the tail, that the monkeys stole the cake!" The concerned faces had turned to smiles and they started pretending with me. I said "We're going to have to travel through the jungle to find those monkeys and rescue Jade's cake. We must stay together, and remember, today my house is a jungle. The things we will be doing is only for the jungle and are not to be done at home, ok?..they agreed" They followed me as we went down the first set of stairs and came to the landing. "Oh no, how will we get across they pond?" My cousin had put down big sheets of blue crate paper (.59 each) across our green tile and cut out a few circles in paths leading to the other stairs. "Jadlen said, I think we can jump on the turtles backs to get across1" We each jumped on the turtles backs and made it to the water fall. Then we slid down the 'waterfall' (a blue exercise matt that was laid on the stairs) and landed on the bean bag. Of course the kids were giggling with glee. Then they crawled through bear cave tunnel (an extra king size mattress in the hall, leaning from wall to wall with a black blanket over it) The kids had to duck down far or get on hands and knees to make it to the other side. When we made It through the tunnel we saw some raisinettes the monkeys had left as a trail (they could have been monkey droppings but, I didn't say that hehe) they led to Jadelyns play room. My mom and hung up long streamers of green crepe paper from the door to the window. I said that ehy were sea snakes and we had to weave in between them so carefully so we didn't get bit. When we made it to the window, they crawled on the odamon, then the egress window, parted the crepe paper water, and went through the egress window to the front lawn. We have stepping stones as stairs in the window for fire escape purposes. At the top, my cousin was pretending to be a monkey and was guarding to saw horses with a blanket over them. The kids loved trying to scare the monkey away. When they scared the monkey away we found the cake safe in the little cave. We took it in and someone served it up while Jadelyn opened presents and made sure to give each kid their goody bag when she thanked them for the present. Then we went in and at our snake cake. the cake was so cool! I again got this idea from familyfun.com and my husband decorated very well. I baked 2 bunt cakes a couple days ahead, cut them in half and froze them. Then that morning I took them out so they could thaw. We placed them end to end so the made an= slitehing snake shape. Then we cut one of the ends a little so the head would be more straight and kind of rounded. Derek covered it in fluorescent green frosting, used a strawberry fruit by the foot for the tongue and more fruit roll up as stripes for the snake. Then he put juice bursting gummy lifes savers all over the cake for cute Polk a dots. Muy cute! After the cake we did the adventures MANY more times and then turned lion king back on to calm down a little as parents arrived. Oh, Decorations were leopard sheets and other jungle stuff we already have, pillows, elephant tapestry, elephant figures and pictures, zebra ar rest covers. Then I cut out large green jungle leafs from butcher paper and curly vines from papers sacks and put hem around the arch way entrance to the living room. There was also cute jungle wrappijng paper on the inside of the door. The party was very successful, jadelyn loved it, I was relatively calm (thanks to the huge help of my mom, cousin Kari, and wonderful husband) the kids will probably be talking about it for awhile and I had fun doing it. The day before we went to Lagoon with just our family for her birthday..but that will be left for another post.