In case anyone else out there wants to throw a bird-themed party, I thought I’d share a few ideas that we used to pull it all together.  When Maggie initially picked this theme, I had no idea what we would do.  In the end, we had more ideas than we could use!

Designing the invitations is my favorite step in the party planning process.  I believe an invitation sets the tone for the event.  The kids and I always have fun thinking of puns to match the theme, or enlisting the help of brilliant minds who have gone before us and so generously shared their ideas online.  For the bird party, Maggie picked her clip art from some choices I found on Etsy.  Matching the font to the graphics is always a time-consuming process, but I was happy with the end result this time:

We didn’t go too crazy with decorations this year.  We could have spent weeks folding origami birds to hang in the entryway, but I’m not that Martha Stewart.  I did take her to Michael’s and she picked out a few nests, a decorative bird cage, and some realistic looking eggs.  I had intentions of making a compilation CD of bird music (Werner Thomas’ Chicken Dance, The Beatles’ Blackbird or Free as a Bird, and Rockin’ Robin by Bobby Day came to mind) but I didn’t get that done either.  They would have made great party favors… dang!

The cake is always the biggest source of stress for me, but this one was incredibly easy.  We found the idea for a Mama Owl with owlet cupcakes on the Family Fun web site, and I didn’t even have to dig out my piping tools.  Nice!  Maggie requested the pink body and white breast (sans coconut), but otherwise we followed the recipe egg-sactly. 😉

In addition to cake, we also had some bird-themed snacks like gummy worms and sunflower seeds.

The party lasted for two hours, which was the right amount of time for the activities we had planned.  The girls painted birdhouses (only $1 each at Michael’s) and made homemade bird feeders.  I had planned to make the feeders with a pine cone base, but could only find scented ones (which could be toxic for the birds).  As a last-minute backup we used bagels.  It was simple to tie a ribbon on the bagel, frost it with a mixture of peanut butter and butter, and then dip in the seed of choice.  Voila!  (Except for those of us who live in bear territory… our feeders are all coming down!)

We also brought out a bag of feathers, with visions of simple, innocuous  games such as “Blow the Feathers” to entertain the sweet girls.  Silly us!   A violent feather fight quickly ensued, which was harmless unless you are a piece of living room carpet.  (Note to self:  even state of the art vacuums will not suck up all feather residue.)

Other cute ideas we found but did not use were to play pin-the-tail-feather-on-the-bird, “Duck-Duck-Goose” (but let the kids substitute other bird types for the goose), or turn up the music and let them chicken dance.  Origami would have been fun too.

For the thank you cards, we are sending a picture of Maggie with all of the Bird TLC donations.  One the inside it will say, “The party was a hoot!  Thanks for coming and for helping the birds!”  (Thank goodness kindergartners don’t have a great sense of dork-dar just yet.)\

It’s only a few days post-party, and I’m already feeling nostalgic.  This could be bad.  Please… someone… anyone… everyone… remind me next year NOT to do it again!  I’m thinking three guests at the maximum for all future birthdays.

Sam turns 8 in June.  He wants a bowling party.  Any bets?