I’m taking a break from our Lambing Help series and sharing about Speedracer’s recent Skylanders birthday party.

This whole party was an interesting quandary for me because our kiddos don’t play video games. At. All. We don’t have a Wii or a Playstation or an Atari or whatever. {grin} The closest they get is occasionally playing Wonder Zoo on the tablet. Our kiddos know Skylanders from colorful comic books and their friends at school. We bought them some of the toys at Christmas because I got a great Cyber Monday deal on them, but they don’t know anything about the “portal of power” other than seeing it in the store. They don’t know anything about the levels of the game, or who fights who, or why, or what you “win.” They don’t know the difference between Skylanders Giants and Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure and Skylanders Swap Force, other than the difference in the toys.

But they LOVE the toys!

And why do I know all this? From trying to find party ideas! {smile} I found a lot of great ideas from other mommas that I pinned on my Birthday Party Ideas board.

Turns out there’s not much for Skylanders party supplies out there! Surprised me, that’s for sure. I did happen upon invitations, plates, and napkins at Target, so I snatched up one of each. But I thought they were a little pricey, so we went solid colors for everything else. There was no fabric, no paper, no pencils or trinkets, I couldn’t even find any leftover school supplies! And the handful of stickers and trading cards I did find were kinda expensive–at least for our plans. I went ahead with store-bought invitations because I was really light on theme details and I knew he would like that. Skylanders and video games are a little out of my element, so I didn’t feel much of a creative flow, either.

We had already done a Nature {Outdoor} Party and a Cowboy {Movie} Party, so we decided this time to go with a Traditional {Game} Party. I’m going to share what our plan was–and how creative I think I am–but first I have to share this…

This party was kinda a flop. The good kind–if there is such a thing. I’ll share why at the end, but here’s all the little details for our simple, at home, Skylanders birthday party…

We just had big tubs of popcorn, grapes, and pretzels out for snacks–perfect for boys, and very easy to refill. And thankfully grapes were on sale that week! They had a lot of fun sticking grapes on the pretzel sticks to form “lollipops,” “wheels” and other crazy shapes before they ate them.

When our guests walked in, we had bags. They could each pick a character, color it, and put their name on it. This was meant to be a sort of introductory mixer activity while everyone got dropped off and then it would hold their “prizes” from the games–and would end up as their party favor. I found the scale-able coloring pages at Hello Kids and the plain white bags at the Dollar store and just scuffed them up with some stamping ink.

The idea was that the party guests were competing as a team and everyone has to complete “the level” before we were done. Then, for each level, there was a specific “prize” from the treasure chest.

We had Eruptor’s Lava Lob (thank you, Picking Daisies!) which was soup cans decorated with glitter paper and basket tinsel (both from my craft stash). We put some of our Christmas toys on the top and the kiddos had to shoot them down with a sling-shot (which the birthday-boy got to keep afterwards).

Two tips…

One, we were outside and the target needed some…focus…for our young guests. So we used some poster board (VBS leftovers!) and draped fabric on it. It helped close in the target for the boys.

Two, we used the Foam Strike Pocket Shot because I didn’t want a long distance launcher. It was a little harder for the boys to get the hang of (and their attention span was super-short–see #momfail below!). I would do it again, but maybe have two so someone could be practicing while waiting their turn.

The prize for this level was little red bags of Atomic Fireballs.

The second game was Trigger Happy’s Target Shoot. Same concept, different colors. {smile} Boys love shooting things!

The cans were decorated with yellow cardstock paper (from the stash) and then curing ribbon (Dollar Store!) was wound around rubber bands in the middle–which were also helping hold the paper on because I ran out of adhesive. {sigh} This time we used the Trigger Happy Dart Launcher (which also ended up as part of the birthday boy’s loot for the day!) I have to say, we spent a lot of time chasing those darts–even with the background their aim was worse than I expected! {smile}

The prize for this game was a little bag of gold “coins” (Chocolate!).

We had a third game planned, Slam Bam’s Frozen Jewels. We froze colored beads (from the stash) in ice cubes and the boys were going to smash them out until everyone found a gold bead. The prize was twirly “power” pops–but we never got to this game. (See #momfail below.)

The final “game over” prize (wrapped in white paper) was a Skylanders toy. With a homemade cake, light snacks, and homemade games, we were able to find a couple of toys that were in our budget as a party favor–although I wrapped them so I didn’t have to hear any complaints that they were all the same one. {smile}

The planning was fine. The setup was fun. All the right elements were there.

But when it came to executing the party we had planned, I fell quite short.

Why? Because the boys wanted to run around playing football, shooting each other with nerf guns, and playing in the woods. I rounded them up a few times and tried to focus on the party games we had set up, but the green grass and fresh air was just calling their names and eventually I gave up and just let them play. We had 15 minutes of introductory party stuff…an hour of football…20 minutes of games…an hour of nerf guns…cake and presents…and 30 minutes of nerf guns in the woods.

Oh yeah, and I hardly took any pictures! {sigh}

And they had a blast–which makes a good kind of #MOMFAIL–but I would have done better to just plan an outdoor football party or something. All that work…{groan}

I guess it’s just one of those “it is what it is” moments. The birthday boy was happy–he said it was the best day of his life!–and everyone that came said they wanted to come back again, so we’ll call it a strange kind of win. {smile}