Yes… sorry! It’s been a long time since I’ve last written. I had a few things to chat about, but I think my resolution to have at least one photo in every post sort of slowed me down. lol Anywho… the past few weeks I’ve been going Ice Cream crazy!! My daughter turned 8 this month, and we decided to throw an ice cream themed birthday party for her. How fun! I had a blast planning everything and searching the net for ice cream goodies. It went great. But, now that its over, I wish I had taken more pics. :( I had to keep 9 girls in control myself! lol

Here’s some cute ice cream pics I found along my hunt..

Cute Ice Cream for laugh :D hahaha by nerdpower123 on Polyvore.com

For the goodie bags, I bought plain pink paper bags, then drew an ice cream cone on it with a face. I then drew a talk bubble with the child’s name. Inside, we put ice cream cone shooters, mini ice cream erasors, bubbles in an icecream cone container, some baskin robins ice cream hard candies, stickers that I bought from pickleheadon Etsy (pictured below), and a bracelet that my daughter made with pink, brown, and white beads. The girls loved everything! Although, I gave them the bags a bit early, and I had to keep untangling the strings from the shooters! lol

 Aren’t these CUTE!!?? he he

Of course, everything was pink, white, and brown for our theme (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate!). I hung up a bunch of streamers in all three colors, put out a pink table cloth with brown plates and white cups and napkins. We also had balloons in all three colors also. I found a cool idea on the net that I tried out… we wraped up some brown paper into a cone shape, then put a balloon on top. Pull the string through the bottom of the cone, then tie a knot so it stays. It looks like an ice cream cone! he he :0)

Yes, I made her dress… well sort of. I did buy a dress this year, then just decorated it with a triple scoop ice cream cone!  I also put a hair wrap in her hair – which I recorded to edit for a future youtube how-to video; so keep a look out for that! ;0)

While girls were showing up for the party, I had them sit down and color a circle to create a button with our button maker. I also had some coloring pages and a maze for them to do.

For games, we played pin the cherry on the ice cream, ice cream relay races, and dig for the cherry. For the first game, I just colored an ice cream cone on paper and taped it to our sliding glass door. I blind folded each girl and they had to try and stick the cherry on the top (I made a little cherry “smudge” at the top to indicate where the cherry was supposed to go). They loved it!

For the relay races, I made three small brown paper cones then painted three styrofoam balls in pink, brown, and white. There were three teams, and they had to run down the hill then back up without letting the ball of “ice cream” fall off the cone. The winner team got to take home the “ice cream cones”. – Luckily we had 9 people to play, so it worked out perfectly.

They had the most fun digging for the cherry… I put a bowl in front of each one of them, put a cherry at the bottom, then let them fill up the bowl with whip cream themselves. Then all together, they dug in with their face to dig out the cherry! lol  It took a little time to clean up afterwards, but it was well worth it! he he

Oh yes, and the best part of all; we made our own sundaes instead of doing a cake. We used the “pin the cherry on the ice cream” game to figure out who went first in line so there was no arguing. ;) We had all three flavors, crushed oreos, bannanas, sprinkles… a few others I can’t recall at the moment lol and of course some whip cream and cherries! Mmmm mmm! They all had a blast – and I turned out with a great group shot to include with their thank you note! he he

Don’t ask me why I go all out and crazy each birthday… its not like I have the money to do a huge crazy party! lol I just love planning them, and seeing the excitment it gives my daughter. I always try to keep the cost as low as possible while having a theme and some fun interesting things. Like this year, I saved money by going with plain colored paper goods instead of buying themed printed ones. I made the game props myself with things I had around the house, and my daughter made the bracelets for the goodie bags. We were able to find streamers, whip cream and some of the other goodies at the $1 store too! Planning the party definately consumed my life for a few weeks, but I enjoyed every minute of it! he he :0)