Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Party

This past weekend E1 turned 5! John and I are still in slight disbelief that he is 5 already and starting kindergarten in the Fall. I still remember vividly one of the first nights we were home with him when he was a baby and he was sleeping between my husband and I, and I turned to John and said, "Wow, I can't believe he's ours!"

We decided pretty early on to throw him a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party since the 3 older E's saw a few episodes on youtube and really enjoyed it. They love to do the Hot Dog dance and pretend to be the characters in the show, usually E1 is Mickey, E2 is Daisy, and E3 is Minnie; sometimes they will also include E4 and say that he is Chip.

Then one day we went to the national park that is close to our house and while watching the kids run around on the huge field we decided it would be fun to throw the party at the park. And that is pretty much how we came to throw E1 an outdoor Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party.

For the food since I wanted to make it easy for our guests and keep the food relatively safe from bugs, I decided to pack individual lunch bags. So our guests could just grab a bag and sit down without too much hassle. We had 2 meals prepared--"Hot Diggity Dog" and "CLUBhouse Sandwich" meals. The sandwiches came with Mickey Mouse shaped bread. In addition to the main entree, each meal bag came with a bottle of water, a juice box, a bag of chips, and napkins and utensils.

For a game, we played "Mickey Go Seek" which was basically favor bags that were gender specific, the boy bags were decorated with a Mickey icon and girl bags with a Minnie icon, scattered throughout the field and the kids had to run and find one.

I decided to forgo a big cake and go with mini cupcakes and a larger size cupcake for E1. Made a couple of cupcake stands to display all the cupcakes on and little Mickey Mouse decorations for each cupcake. I had bought a Mickey Mouse punch and a scalloped circular punch which made making all the decorations much easier.

* E1 wearing my Mickey Mouse shirt for his party.

For the favors, we decided to do a goodie bag for each family instead of each individual kid. That way we could pack them with fun things that everyone could use right there at the park. Each bag included a kite, soccer ball, jump rope, bubble wand, and frisbee.

I had at least one more activity planned for the party but just being outside was plenty of fun for all the kids. Just running around and exploring nature. It was really cute watching the kids run around in little groups, playing with balls, checking out worms in the ground, and digging up holes with sticks. It was also a rather windy day which was perfect for flying a kite. All the dads were very enthusiastic about showing their kids how to fly a kite.

 * Kids chasing bubbles right at the beginning of the party. Great way to get everyone warmed up.

 * The kids off exploring.

* Each balloon was weighted down and we had untangled them so each kid could take one home. They had fun running through all of them! A totally unplanned activity.

For Thank You cards, I had E1 draw something Mickey Mouse Clubhouse related and he decided that he would draw a different character for each card.

Overall, it was a fun day for all!

Zi