Animal Birthday Party....again....

   My youngest was turning 5 and asked for a pet shop birthday....which is exactly what she had asked for last year! Oh well, I appreciate her unwavering love of all things furry! 
   We decided to make it a pet shop (NOT Littlest Pet Shop {the show|, as you actually can't find much in the way of party products for that brand, but I am more than happy to not have a commercial birthday!). 

   As far as food goes at this shin-dig, Keziah wanted hamburgers, so that's what she got! Nothing animal themed about it...well, except for it being an animal product....?
   I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of lunch, except for dessert! Oh well, we had (as mentioned) burgers, and also popcorn and chips (served in dog food dishes!), & veggies and dip. 
   As part of dessert I made a cookie sheet of Rice Krispie treats, poured melted chocolate over it, and let it set. Then I cut out fish and dog bones using a cookie cutter, then added some detail with the buttercream I had made for the cupcakes. You can see the bones in the bottom left picture of the above collage, and my middle goof-ball daughter is holding a smily fish in the top right photo. 
  I also made up a batch of my peanut butter macaroons to be, well, animal poop, and we had fresh fruit as well. Oh, and ice cream! 
   I bought the paper ware for the party from Party City (I usually order stuff online from Party City, but an actual Party City store opened in Belleville so my middle kiddo and I went to have a looky-loo. It was fun!)

   Last year I made her a fancy cake (you can see it here), but we were planning on having her birthday so close to us getting home from holiday visiting and New Years Eve that I knew I wouldn't have the time to really work on a cake. So, before we left for Christmas (3 weeks before the party), I made a batch of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and stashed them away in the freezer. I took them out of the freezer to thaw one day before the party and decorated them with a simple buttercream. 
   Then to some I added chocolate animals I had made from some moulds I had gotten from my Mother-in-law. I made one cat for my daughters cupcake, and a few puppies for some other cupcakes. I also wrote "meow" in moulding chocolate (by putting it into a ziplock bag and cutting a small corner off to making a piping bag).    

   The last thing we (my sister and I) did for the cupcakes was to make some paw prints out of buttercream and marshmallows. We simply piped some buttercream onto the iced cupcakes as 'glue', then added 3 mini mallows, and a cut-in-half big mallow to create a paw.  

   For grab bags I decided that the kids could each 'adopt' a pet from the 'pet shop'. 
   Instead of spending a crazy amount of money on new animals, and also to be mindful of the wastefulness of the toy industry, I set out to find cute stuffed animals at second hand shops. My sister found a whole bunch of them at Value Village in Brantford, and I found some at The Salvation Army and St. Vincent De Paul in Belleville. Getting "stuffies" was important because I was able to throw all the toys into my washer and give them a nice hot wash, then dry them until they were super fluffy and good as new!
   Seriously, in total (and this includes a bunch of stuffies I didn't end up using) it cost roughly $6 to buy all the animals you see in the baskets in the collage above! 
   To the grab bags I also added "puppy chow" which is a seriously, seriously, seriously yummy and addictive snack made with Chex cereal, peanut butter and chocolate, and icing sugar. Mmmmmm.....puppy  chow......Google it for a million variations on the recipe! 
   You can see the puppy chow in the pink bag in the collage above, and we also served it with lunch (in the first collage in this post). 
   There were a few other treats in the bags too; a few Swedish Fish and some fruit flavoured candy sticks-these were meant to be, well, fish (duh), and dog bones. I got those candies from Party City. You could buy 15 candies for $1, and the candy sticks and fish were individually wrapped, so it was handy and sanitary! 

   Here's me! :)  I am (like my middle child) quite unable to make a normal face for a photo. There is endless proof of this, but we'll leave that for another time!  

    Anyway, it was a good party; attendance dropped dramatically when I announced to the guests (via e-mail) that Keziah had chicken pox, and although she would likely not be contagious by her birthday party, it was likely that her sister would be.
   She still had a few friends over, and my sister and brother-in-law came with their many, many children, and that's a party right there!  
   I didn't plan anything except to print out some animal colouring pages. Kids generally are happy playing with new toys at someones house, and I have found that planning 100 games isn't always necessary. In fact, it can just make things more stressful! 

   So, that's it! I hope if you're planning an animal party you can glean some ideas from here (or from last years animal birthday post!) and that you have a grand party! And if you were just looking for fun....well, you may want to examine your idea of fun. Whomp whomp. Gotcha there. 

:)