A Cowgirl Birthday

I love planning birthday parties for my kids. My goal is to come up with fun activities, creative decorations and a party that my kids will be happy to invite their friends to. Usually, although not always, birthday parties for my kids are in our home. I like to have them in a familiar place.

The parties that haven't been at home, that I can remember, are: Elise's 1st b-day which we had in Victoria. Scott's 3rd birthday - at the Zoo (everyone that was invited had zoo passes or else lived at the zoo, so that was easy!), Scott's 8th and Todd's 7th combined for a Sports themed party for which we rented out our church gym, and Elise's 5th birthday, which we had at the splash park last summer because her 4 cousins were staying with us and what better activity to do with 7 young children and 4 adults on a hot July afternoon than go to the splash park!

The themes I've done for the kids are: (and yes, I enlisted the help of my 9 year old to help me remember all these!!)

Scott: Age 1 - Zoo (at home), 2 - Bob the Builder, 3 - Zoo (at the zoo), 4 - Kindermusik, 5 - Friends over (no theme), 6 - Fireman, 7 - Wall*E, 8 - Sports, 9 - Lego

Todd: 1 - Sesame Street, 2 - Friends over (no theme), 3 - Kindermusik (joint party with Scott), 4 - Cars, 5 - Pirates, 6 - Hockey, 7 - Sports (joint party with Scott), 8 - Angry Birds

Elise: 1 - Pigs, 2 - Ladybug Picnic, 3 - Princess Tea Party, 4 - Strawberry Shortcake , 5 - Splash Park, 6 - Our most recent party adventure - COWGIRL!!!!

There were 7 girls, plus Elise and her brothers (well, the boys only lasted part of the time!) at the Cowgirl party and we had a great time.


I love this Mason jar and cupcake papers idea for the drinks. This was a little gem I found on Pinterest!



Each cowgirl got a hat to decorate and take home with her.


Scott decorating one of the hats.... we also stamped on bandanas that the girls took home.


I made a banner out of scrapbook paper that says "celebrate". It is now hanging in Elise's bedroom.


The goodie bags had a bag of chips, a big chocolate bar and some cowgirl foam stickers inside.


I went with simple cupcakes instead of a big cake, as per the birthday girl's request. In the batter of each cupcake, before baking, I put a few raspberries (picked by Elise, herself!) and then a single raspberry on the top of each cupcake after icing them.



We played a few games at the party...

Musical Chairs with some hoedown music:


Pin the tail (which technically only got played the day after the party because we ran out of time at the birthday party... but our friends saved the day the next evening when they came for dinner and played the game with Elise! Phew... we had one sad little girl on our hands when she realized that pin the tail got missed, but was happy when she could play party games the next day, too!!)


Ring Toss:


Scott and Elise playing after the party with one of her presents...


And the best part about having a theme party is that we get to dress up, too!!!