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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Owl Plan Your Birthday Party

Owl paintings
By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents

My daughter recently turned nine.  With a wife working full time and up to her eyeballs in research for her thesis, I told my daughter I'd plan her birthday party.  I've thrown some successful shindigs in the past, so I thought this would be fun (and it was).  This year must be the Year of Owl, as it's all she talked about for the months leading up to her big day.

After scouring Pintest for ideas, we came up with several things to do during the party, which included a sleepover.  My wife pinned some ideas my way too, which made the planning process all the easier.  Add my parents into the mix to help tie up the loose ends and we were ready to par-tay.


Pinata: Before & After
Brooke really wanted an owl pinata at her birthday.  Owl party themes aren't all the rage these days, but I did find a huge one at Party City, but it was damaged.  When I was a kid, my parents made the pinatas we had at our birthday parties.  So I figured, what the heck, I can do that.  I found a "recipe" for an owl pinata at this website, which made it much easier to do.  Since I usually procrastinate, I actually started this a few days early, as the process requires time for the paper mache to dry.  I tweaked the instructions a bit, and used the colors from my daughter's school instead.



Once it was complete, we filled it with nine bags of candy (thanks mom).  There were nine girls at the party, and each got three swings at the owl.  On the ninth girl's final swing, the owl dropped from his perch and candy spilled everywhere.  It timed out perfectly.


Painting time
In an effort to encourage some creativity (and eat up some time), my wife suggested everyone do a painting.  We both read up on how to paint owls.  I got each girl a canvas square (you can find these probably anywhere, but I got our's at Hobby Lobby).  We squeezed out ample amounts of acrylic paint and let the girls' creative juices flow.  We ended up with some wonderful works of art.


Owl cupcakes
What's a party without sweet treats?  My mom and Brooke baked cupcakes the morning of the big day.  Each girl got her own, along with some icing, candy corn, M&M's, and miniature Oroes to create their own owl cupcake.  Some went with just an all-candy topping which didn't come close to resembling an owl, but that was okay, as it was all part of the fun.

Those are just a few of the things we did before winding things down for the night.  All in all, I think birthday number nine ended up being a memorable one from the planning process through the party itself.

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