Cat party

Kara was so impatient waiting for her friends to arrive for her birthday party/sleepover. I however, was glad to have a little time to get everything ready. This is how the mouse hunt game turned out. I tried to blow up water balloons, but it was impossible, so I had to get regular balloons and partially inflate them. Ben actually blew most of them up for me. Then I drew mouse faces on them. The girls had a blast throwing the darts at them. The little green one in the center is the one water balloon that Ben managed to inflate. It was too cute not to include, so I made it extra points.  

When her guests arrived, they got to pick out their ears.

Then they choose a tail. These were easy to make. I just bought feather boas, cut them into smaller pieces, and attached a safety pin. They did shed like CRAZY. By about 30 minutes into her party, my carpet looked like there had been animals fighting on it.

We also got some face paint crayons, and set up a cat face station. Kiersten was not happy to let Kara borrow her mirror, and kept taking it back to her bathroom.

After they ate pizza, they got to choose their own kitten to adopt.

Kara wanted a big grumpy cat she saw online. Ben told her he wasn't willing to pay $40 for a stuffed animal, and she was so disappointed. So when I saw this one on clearance at Sam's Club for $15, I got it for her, but didn't tell her. I wanted to pull it out during the party, so it hid behind the sofa.

She asked for blue streamers and balloons for the fishing game. I knew she wanted the balloons mixed in with the streamers, but I thought that would hinder the fishing, so I placed them along the side.

There was also a station for making collars for their new kittens.

I had tons of dum dums leftover from Evie's 1/2 birthday at preschool, so I made a dum dum topiary.

I thought it looked pretty fun on the table.

She decorated the front door with cat and dog window clings. By the time her friends arrived, it was getting dark, so I don't know if anyone even saw them, but it made her happy.

They had a great time painting each other's cat faces.

She also wanted these mouse traps with stuffed mice caught in them. So I thought it would be funny to set them next to a plate of cheese cubes. I was a little concerned about the girls hurting themselves with the mouse traps, but they left them alone.

They really got into the cat theme, and all had a ball acting cat-like. There was a lot of meowing, hissing, crawling, and tail pulling.

All of the girls were excited to adopt their kittens. After each one chose their cat, I snapped their picture, and they officially named their kitty. I told Kara she had to go last to be a good host. When there was only one cat left, she told Evie, "sorry, you don't get to have one". But I told her she couldn't be rude, and that Evie got the cat. She started pouting, until I announced that I thought I had dropped one of them behind the sofa.

She was actually still pouting, but they all followed me in there, and I pulled out the big grumpy cat. At least half of the girls dropped their previously cherished kitties, and frantically started begging to have that one. I was surprised, because I assumed it would be obvious it was for Kara, but they all wanted it, and it got a little heated, before I said he was for Kara. Then they all started hurriedly gathering up their own cats again.

The dart game was a success, and one girl dominated enough that the results of the second round weren't going to matter. So a couple of the girls went wild just popping all of the remaining balloons, which made Kara cry. So I had to have a little talk with her, and remind her not to get upset when things don't go exactly as planned. The winners of the games each got a cat cup, so it's not like it was the most exciting prize in the world. The girl who won fishing was actually really happy with it. It was too crazy during the fishing game to take pictures. I was timing them, and replacing paperclips non-stop.

I colored the bottom of one of the suckers black, and had them go around taking out a dum dum until someone found the winning sucker.

I whispered to Evie what color the winning dum dum was, but she didn't find it. She was just happy to be included. Kiersten went to a friend's house with Ben, so she wasn't at the party. The winning sucker didn't get found until only about 11 remained. After it was found, a few of the girls started grabbing out the rest, causing Kara to get upset again. So I had them put them back so they could be evenly distributed.

The cat litter game was a riot. The first girl to play was very hesitant, but it heated up after that. I timed them for 10 seconds to get as many poops as they could. They were supposed to try not to get the rice krispies, but by the end the table was just covered. Some of the girls put the chocolates in their goodie boxes to take home. Not sure how that went over with the moms to find already opened candy in there.

She blew out the candles in one breath. I had her friend help put them on, and at the last second, noticed she'd placed 15 candles, so I had to hurry and pull some out.

She was very cute opening her gifts. They were all so eager for her to see what they'd given her, and she was most impressed by the cards. Some of them made very intricate and creative cards for her.

She was getting a little crowded, and some were complaining they couldn't see, so I had to keep telling them all to sit back down. But they'd be right back up for the next gift. So I started assigning them duties, such as "present stacker", "wrapping paper clean up", and "gift bag folder". One of them also got to be the gift hander outer with Evie. They all wanted to have that job, but I picked Amy because she was being super helpful and sweet with Evie the whole evening. She made sure Evie got included in everything. (she has 3 little sisters, so I wasn't too surprised)

There was just one tense moment when her friend gave her a set of "BFF" bracelets. Two of the girls immediately started to question why she was giving them to her, and I was about to step in and say something, but Kara handled it herself by saying, "Because we're best friends." Then she added, "You are all my best friends, which is why you're invited to my birthday party. Addison is just my very best friend, and the rest are also my best friends." One of the girls insisted, "well, I'm your  best friend that's in your class", and then the controversy died at that. The joys of 3rd grade girls.

After she opened gifts they were free to replay the games, watch movies, and help her enjoy her new things. It got a bit crazy, but it was fun. At 11, I made a rule of no more running or yelling, and I turned on a movie for those that wanted to go to sleep. A few of them stayed up really late, and I was going downstairs until 3:30 telling them to get back in bed. So I'm sure there were a couple of very tired girls the next day. It was actually kinda fun to wake them up just before 8AM. I made sure to wake Kara first, and predictably, the ones who fell asleep early were upstairs right away, and the late-nighters didn't show. So I sent Evie down to be her loud self, and they all came up after a few minutes. She requested pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream which went over pretty well. A few did ask for pancake syrup. Needless to say, I was in bed by about 7:30 that night, after being up so late trying to get girls to sleep. I spent most of Sunday relaxing, and I crocheted a cat for Kiersten since she was sad not to have adopted a kitty. She didn't get home from her sleep over til about 4PM, so I had plenty of time to make it for her.  It turned out pretty cute, I'll have to take a picture.