Hello! Alexis here.
I have planned my (now 10) year old brothers birthday parties ever since i was 12. (im now 16) i don't know why i love it so much but i do! :) and also i recently got a dslr camera so i knew that this years party was going to be memorable!
first of all i wanted to thank everyone on pinterest for inspiring the ideas for this party! im am what i like to call a pinterest- puzzler. i spend weeks researching the theme and find cool ideas to use, and tweak them a little so they are just perfect. This is partly why im making this post; i want to help give ideas to those people who want to plan an awesome party too!
A little background info- in the past pretty all of my parties have failed in my eyes, but i finally realized why- i kept planning activities for the kids when all the kids wanted to do was run around and hit each other with balloons. so this year i decided i would try something different, that i would set up something before hand and NOT tell them what to do; just let them do whatever the heck they want to. so after throwing around a couple of ideas i came up with a spy/ agent party which eventually turned into secret agent training themed party.
so without further ado: this is Liams 10th secret agent training party.
Ok i did two kinds of invitations: this kind i made my own code and made a key so that they had to figure out what each letter was! (it said you are invited to liams 10th secret agent training party)
This was the inside of both of them
the other one i wrote the message backwards and they had to use a mirror to read it.
(sorry its a bad picture, it was taken with my iPod)
Now on to the actual party day.....
I had his party at our church annex, which is just a huge gym so it was perfect.
when they first arrived at the building i had this sign on the front door:
inside the foyer there was doors to go into the actual gym, these were on them:
inside, they were instructed to go find their individual badges-
While we waited for everyone to get there before we went in to the actual gym, we picked out "code names" (i had two bags to chose out of).
these are some examples that i pulled out after the party:
ha haha i laughed so hard when i got droopy lizard! also a few other ones that the kids picked that were funny: stinky ninja, blue hippo, depressed agent, black inside man, agent human, and neon pickle :) it was alot of fun seeing what they all got, and they seemed to really like it!!!
after 20 minutes of begging to go in and me saying "not until everyone gets here," the last two people we were waiting for arrived. i went inside the gym and video taped their first response. it was just how i imagined it to be!!!!
I don't know if you can tell from the video, but i set up a huge obstacle course for them to "train" in!
here are the obstacles and other parts of the room shot before the kids destroyed it.
A few weeks ago i made a bunch of signs to go around the room; this was one of my favorites.
i decided to have chips, pop, and of course cake and ice cream :)
for Halloween last year liam was a ninja so i thought i would put the picture of him on the food table.
ok this is the whole gym- the gym was HUGE so it doesn't look like much.
My 'balancing board' made out of tape was a great addition!
ok i loved the poster for this one, and the snake pit itself! the kids had a blast with it!
I set up about 6 tables and put blankets over them to make a 'tunnel'.
after a while it turned into their little fort! :)
Ok i am a little cheap so this one and the next one were found at dollar tree. the "slider shoes" were really aluminum turkey platters! i hot glued a rag to the bottom, and cardboard to the sides to make them
The kids had to slide forward on the lines, and once they mastered that, i had them try to go backwards and sideways!
these (tires?) i didn't know what to call them but they were serving trays i found at dollar tree, and i cut the center out of them to make it so i could get 10 out of 5 trays. needless to say they had a great time with them.
a few years i did something similar to this, i got bubble wrap rolls from the dollar tree and let them hit each other with them! haha (so safe). so this year i put tape on the floor in a square shape and had them do "weapons training."
Ok this one was mine, and pretty much everyone else's favorite. i saw this idea on pinterest so i thought i'd try it. i took yarn, and wrapped it around (i had set up chairs on the side of the stage that had the curtain, and on the other there were tables and other stuff). then i turned on a strobe light at one end of the room and turned on the red light only. (it was really dim)
sorry i left off at the kids coming in, but after they did i let them run around the gym for about an hour and a half before we had cake.
i took pictures the whole time without really looking, and when i was going through them after i realized i have many with flying snakes! lol
flying snake^
flying snake ^
flying snake^
they had a blast in the lazer training arena!!!
Another flying snake ^
they had to break for snacks.....
then continued playing. :)
My mom and i were bored so we had a photoshoot :)
then liam came and joined me and it was great.
after an hour and a half of playing, it was time for cake.
i decided that since the setup was going to be so complicated, it would be best to just stick with box cake.
^this was the main cake, but i also made 3 others- (i know what you're thinking, "you need 4 cakes?!" well i thought that its better to have extra cake then not enough.
I did the 10's on the cake using wax paper and sprinkles.
liam loved his cake.
after cake it was on to presents! since we had invited so many people, he had a TON to open!
Now for the party favors- *side note*- i have been gathering pictures of the kids invited since November. after i got them, i photo shopped the kids in front of an american flag. then i took the pictures and created a new badge! this one had not only their pic, but also a place for a thumb print, an agent id code, and a security clearance code.
Here are a few examples:
they also got a pair of "secret agent" sunglasses that ordered on amazon for cheap.
also my present to liam was a pair of mustache sunglasses: (also found on amazon)
after i gave everyone their badges i made them all pose for pictures:
Well i think that the party was a success!!!!!!! and the best part: liam had a GREAT time!!!!!!!!
