Elizabeth's Hobbit Party

We had Elizabeth's birthday party on Saturday. (Her birthday wass actually Monday, but today worked better for a party.) Elizabeth LOVES anything Hobbit. All my kids do.  So naturally she wanted a Hobbit party.

It was a family affair getting the party ready. I put them all to work! (Nathan had to work and Anna was babysitting through all this - just in case you're wondering why they didn't help.) Blake, Michael and Caleb made a Hobbit hole to put in front of our front door.

I love these next 2 of Caleb helping. He was SO excited he got to actually hammer AND paint!

Helping make the cake. Katie helped by snitching chocolate rocks.  She loves chocolate. We call her The Chocolate Monster.

Katie also made a sign for the front of the cake - all on her own. While we were decorating, she dissappeared and came back with a sign. It's awesome on so many levels. She knows the movie well enough, figured out we needed this sign, wrote it all on her own, and even spelled it right. Plus it's awesome that she has a Hobbit obsession like her sisters. We all melted when we saw her sign. I planned on printing one out all nice and neat, in Hobbit font. But I just HAD to use HER sign after that. (*Picture of Katie's sign will be a few photos down.) Elizabeth got to put Bilbo on the cake. They all love Bilbo. But Katie especially loves him. She says, "Bilbo is dreamy." or "He's beuuuutiful." She thinks he's handsome. 

 Katie's sign. Hmm, she almost spelled everything right. Still way awesome! 

Hobbit hole doorway:

My cute hubby poking his head out the door. He was such a good sport about helping. He doesn't like parties much. But he knows his family does, and he's always doing things to make his family happy.

Another sign. I wanted to paint it by hand, but ran out of time. Oh well. The kids didn't know or care anyway. I found out that NONE of the party guests a clue about Hobbit or LOTR. So the party wasn't all that cool for them.  But Elizabeth liked it and that's all that matters.

My kids dressed up. I refused to spend more money to buy costumes. So Lydia the Creative Master got involved and came up with ideas for everyone. She had a hard time coming up with something for herself. I told her I was too busy with party stuff and that I knew she'd come up with something great. She came back upstairs with a dragon hat and black clothes... Smaug! Actually, she said she didn't look like Smaug (at least in her creative mind), so she said she was Smaug's cousin. Here she is hugging Smaug the dragon pinata.

Caleb didn't know what to be and couldn't find anything. This was all happening about 30 minutes before the party started. They got it in their head last minute that they wanted to dress up. I didn't have time to deal, so I sent Lydia on a mission again. She found this shirt we used for Native American days, had Caleb crouch down so it covered all of him. He was Gollum. Brilliant! It worked better in real life. Here he's trying to act mean like Gollum. He doesn't do Mean very well. 

Anna was Gandalf and made the beard literally 5 minutes before the party started. I was annoyed that she was getting stuff out right before our guests arrived.  But she got it cleaned up in time. Anna helped lead the party because she's a natural leader with kids. They just follow her everywhere. Plus she's loud!  And she knows everything there is to know about Hobbits. She was a great help!

Here's the invitation I made. I'm gradually learning Photoshop. (It's NOT very user-friendly!) I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring this out. Not sure why it's sideways.

Now for party games. We started out doing a Hobbit quiz as we waited for everyone to arrive.

Then we went on a Hobbit Adventure. We turned them all into Hobbits. My mom made them all Hobbit cloaks (thanks mom!) and I made them Hobbit feet by gluing fur on flip flops.  They later took home as party favors.

I had them sign a Burglar contract, just like in the book. Their quest was to defeat Smaug, get the dwarf treasure back and get the arkenstone!

I made a map and used invisible ink and a black light. (Invisible ink that you can sort of see, oops. But it glowed nicely in the black light.) These were the Moon Runes. They had to read the Moon Runes to see where they had to go next on their adventure.  Each one represented a game they would play.

First they fought the Goblin King using darts. (Isn't this guy ugly?!). I originally wanted to use a bow and arrow with darts, but I couldn't find one that actually worked for a decent price. So they fought the Goblin King with dart guns.

It was interesting to me that not one of the girls came close to hitting the Goblin King. Caleb was last and totally nailed him right in the head. Weird how gender is so hard-wired sometimes.

Next we had to find the ring in Gollum's cave. For this, we played "Ring, Ring, Who's Got the Ring?". We played it like Button, Button, Who's Got the Button. No one knows how to play this game now days. Even the mom that stayed with her anxious daughter (she offered to help, so nice), had never heard of it! I told her she must be too young. Weird! I guess I'm old. I taught my kids before the party so they would know how to play it. To me, it didn't seem like that exciting of a game. But they all LOVED it. It was probably one of the favorites. Funny how that works. They would have kept playing it, but we were running short on time.

Then we answered riddles to escape from Gollum. They look so puzzled and are trying so hard to figure out the riddles.

Then we made an eagle craft. Elizabeth wanted to play a game where we rode a flying eagle like the movie. But I couldn't figure out how to do that one. So I told them they had to design an eagle that would like them enough to let them ride on it's back. That seemed to appease her.  They spent forever working on their eagles. I finally had to tell them to be done because the party was almost over. It's amazing what a difference there can be between a party for 9 year old girls and 6 year old boys (Caleb's party a month ago. They were crazy and loud!) These girls were SO quiet and calm... almost too quiet. I kept telling them they had to speak up. Laugh a little, have fun! I've never been to or had a party where it was so quiet. I hope they had fun. They seemed to.

Here's Caleb's eagle. He was so excited for this activity. I told him all about the party for weeks before-hand, and he planned to make his blue with red wings.

Then we went barrel riding. This was the first idea I had when I started planning her party. I sewed a barrel out of brown, wood-looking fabric.

Then they rode the barrel down a "river" on our stairs. (Good thing I have home owner's insurance!  We put out a lot of couch cushions, just to make sure they were safe.) They had fun. THIS activity finally brought them out of their shell. This picture was taken before I added couch cushions.

My camera couldn't catch them very well, but this picture shows Lydia smiling big... and shows how fast they went.

We had a Hobbit feast by playing The Candy Bar Game. We put pictures of all 13 dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf on candy bars. They all sat in a circle and rolled a die. If they got a 6, they could pick a candy bar and put it in their sack. If someone else rolled a 6, they could steal a candy bar from someone. But only if they could remember who had what. At the end, you can keep as many candy bars as you have in your bag. No pics of this. 

Then they had to defeat Smaug, get the treasure and the arkenstone. The treasure and arkenstone were inside a dragon pinata. The arkenstone was a big, light blue gum ball. I only put enough arenstones in so that each kid got one and had to sort through chocolate coin treasure to get it.

I had drawstring bags labeled with "dwarf treasure" for them to put their candy in. I guess I didn't get a pic of those either. 

Then they had cake and presents.  I wasn't as tired as I normally am after birthday parties. They were all so mellow. 

It was a fun party, and most importanly Elizabeth loved it and felt loved! Happy 9th birthday to my sweet Elizabeth!