• Have everyone bring their favorite board game and prepare to laugh your way through the night.
• You can keep everything simple and order pizza, or have everyone bring their favorite appetizer or finger food.
• Set up tables, you can mix it up with adults and kids, or if you have some little ones set up a table just for them. Then have the adults take turns being in charge of the kid’s table.

What games would be fun for a game night party? I think games that get everyone laughing, moving, and thinking are all fun choices. You’ll want to choose games that allow at least 4 players. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Twister or Twister Moves
• Scene It!
• Apples to Apples
• Dice Games
• Have a checkers or chess tournament

You can even come up with your own games to play, just have fun with it. You can add games to any party. Just keep a few games on hand, and if everyone’s standing around looking bored, pull out the games and watch them liven up.

Image Photoxpress.com

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Here is a list of games that would be fun for a fall kid’s party:

• One of my favorite fall games is a scavenger hunt.
• Fall is a great time to have a scarecrow building contest. Have clothes, straw, and other materials sorted into piles, and let the kids create their own scarecrows in groups of three or four.
• Let the kids paint pumpkins
• Find someone with a tractor and a wagon and hire them to do a hay ride.
• Pin the nose on the Jack O’Lantern
• Have a scarecrow race
• Have a fall treasure hunt. Give the kids clues and a map to help them find the “treasure”

What are your favorite fall party games?

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If you’re having a sports party, a simple round balloon pinata can be decorated like a ball. If your party has a different theme you can use a single balloon and make a simple round pinata, or use a couple balloons fastened together to give your pinata a fun shape.

• Toilet paper tubes are also great for shaping a pinata, they make great animal legs, or arms for people.
• Use brightly colored tissue paper torn into small bits to decorate the outside of the pinata.

Here’s a fun video that shows you step by step how to make a simple pinata.

Image via Flickr Mr. VJTod

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Penny Warner at Balloon Time put together a list of Up movie party ideas centered around the balloon theme. Balloon Time is also offering a $2.00 off coupon for their Balloon Time Helium Balloon Kits right now.

Tips for Throwing a Themed “Up,” The Movie Party

By Penny Warner with Balloon Time Helium Balloon Kits

If one of your children has a birthday coming up, build a party theme around Disney© Pixar’s new movie, “Up.” This delightful computer-animated 3-D film features the adventures of an old man named Carl and an eight-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell. Together they meet up with unexpected villains and escape wild jungle animals – all while traveling in a house floating from a bunch of helium-inflated balloons!

Invitations: Build your own floating house
Cut out house-shaped cards, decorate them to look like the party house, and write the address on the front. On the back, add the party details. Inflate a balloon with helium using a Balloon Time Helium Balloon Kit, tie the house card to the balloon with string, and hand deliver to your guests.

Decorations: Inflate the party goers with fun
Fill the room with helium balloons but personalize them with pictures of the guests flying around the room! Photocopy their yearbook photos onto lightweight paper and cut out the faces. Cut out paper doll bodies from posterboard and glue the faces onto the bodies. Inflate a bunch of balloons with helium and tie each of the “guests” to a balloon bouquet. Then watch them float around the party!

Games & Activities: Bunches of balloons
Balloons are always a hit with kids! Play several balloon-related games and activities in keeping with the theme, to entertain the guests:

Balloon Launch. Inflate about 20 balloons with helium. Collect 20 lightweight objects, such as a sponge, an action figure, a plastic spoon and so on. Place them in the middle of the room. Divide the group into two teams and give each team 10 balloons, tied together in a bunch, with ribbon dangling. Have the teams race to choose objects from the pile and tie them onto the strings. The goal is to tie the most objects to the balloon bunch and STILL keep it floating!

Balloon Attack. Use the Balloon Time Party Create-A-Face Sticker Kit to inflate a bunch of balloons with helium and use the stickers to give each balloon its own, scary face. Tie ribbons to the balloons, short enough to make the kids jump to reach them, and let the balloons float on the ceiling. Divide into two teams. On the word, “Attack!” have one player from each team jump up and grab a balloon string, and then try to pop the balloon as quickly as possible – by sitting on it, stepping on it and so on. As soon as a player has popped a balloon, he or she must run back to the team and tap the next player in line to pop a balloon. The team that finishes popping all the balloons first wins!

Balloon Collector. Inflate 15 to 20 balloons with helium. Select a player, set a timer for two minutes, and then have the player try to hold onto as many balloons as he or she can – stuffed in a shirt, under the arms, between the legs, under the neck, and so on. At the end of two minutes, count how many balloons the player has managed to hold onto. The player with the biggest balloon total wins the game. Meanwhile, the onlookers get to enjoy the hilarious antics of each player!

Balloon Posse. Divide the group into two teams, each representing one color. Blow up enough balloons for each player to have one balloon in his or her team’s color. Set up an obstacle course in the party room or yard, with small tables, chairs, large boxes and so on. Line up teams and give one player from each team a broom and a balloon in the team color. Players must race to get their balloons through the obstacle course using only the broom. The first team to complete the race wins.

Refreshments: Re-inflate the fun with themed snacks
In keeping with the balloon theme, serve your guests round snacks, like cheese and crackers, and balloon-shaped sandwiches using a cookie cutter. For a balloon birthday cake, bake three round cakes, set them together to form a balloon bouquet, and frost them red, blue, and yellow. Use licorice whips as strings.

Favors: Send the guests up, up and away
Insert a small toy inside a dark-colored balloon. Inflate the balloons with helium to use as decorations at the party. When the party is over, have the kids choose a balloon and pop it to find the surprise inside!

Are you planning an Up movie party? Do you have any ideas to add to the list? Please feel free to share.

Image via sxc.hu

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First up check out these Ocean Art Light Up Jellies(tm), for an evening barbecue around the pool, or a late night swim these cute little jelly fish could light the way.

Or keep cold beverages at your fingertips, even when you’re floating in the pool with this Kelsyus Floating Cooler.

Get your friends and family together for a volleyball party… in the pool, with this Poolside Volleyball Set. The set comes with a pro sized volleyball net, and two heavy duty poolside posts you can fill with water or sand to weight them down.

OK, now I’m ready for a pool party… All I need is the pool.

Images via SwimWays

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• Get out some board games like Pictionary, Scene It, or Partini, check out the She Knows Parties Game Guide for more board game ideas for parties.
• Come up with your own trivia game where you have guests answer questions about events that have happened over the last year. You can use local, national, or celebrity news, or a mixture of all of them to create your questions.
• You can turn the trivia game into a fun game of charades, where someone acts out an event from the last year, and the other guests try to figure out what event they’re doing.
• Play bits of old songs, and have your guests guess what year they came out, the artist, and the title.
• Have everyone write down their New Years resolution on a slip of paper, then put them all in a hat, draw them out and read them while you have all the guests guess who’s resolution it is.

Whatever games you decide to play, have fun with it, and don’t forget to let the guests have some time to mingle and chat.

Image via L Gerlach

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Here are some things to use, or hide in your fall scavenger hunt:

• Leaves- Draw a picture of the leaf, and add the name of the leaf, this is great for teaching children to identify leaves.
• You can also provide crayons and paper, and have them make a leaf rub.
• a pumpkin- either hidden in a display, or growing in the garden.
• an ear of corn
• an animal’s footprint
• a gourd
• a feather
• a fall flower
• a nut
• a buckeye
• a Halloween mask
• a scarecrow
• an apple
• candy

You can add your own ideas to the list, depending on your location and what you have available, but the list above will get you started. Just give them a sheet of paper to check off the items, and break them up into groups. Have a prize for the group that finds everything first.

If it’s later in the fall, or gets cold early, you can also plan your game with this winter scavenger hunt list.

Scarecrow image (c) L Gerlach all rights reserved

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Hold an opening ceremony, and have a team parade. Let each team decorate team t-shirts with their teams emblem, or name. You can also let each team create a team flag.

Elevate your favorite backyard games to Olympic status. Give out gold, silver, and bronze medals to the winners. You can get them from an awards store, or make your own out of cardboard, and ribbon. Write your own message on the back. Use your steps, or the deck for a podium.

Here are a few backyard events, turned Olympic game ideas to get you started:

• Relay race
• Football, or Frisbee throw
• Water balloon toss
• Long jump
• Volleyball tournament
• Pool relay
• Synchronized swimming
• Corn hole
• Croquet
• Badminton
• Wheelbarrow races
• Basketball tournament

What other backyard games can you think of? You can make any game into an Olympic event, it’s your party.

Olympic party food

Olympic party decorations

Find out more about the real Summer Olympics at Light the Torch.

Image via Stock.xchng

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We went to see Wall-E this afternoon so we beat the crowds that will be at the theaters this weekend. The movie is the latest collaboration between the Disney- Pixar powerhouse, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a really cute tale, with a great environmental message, about a robot who’s been on his own on a junk filled planet earth for 700 years. He’s developed his own quirky personality during that time.

When a space ship lands, and a little robot named Eve invades his world everything changes. Wall-E develops feelings for Eve, and presents her with a living plant. Eve is picked back up by the spaceship that delivered her, and a concerned Wall-E follows her into space.

While I was watching the movie, of course I was thinking of fun Wall-E party ideas. Here are some activities I think would be fun for an out of this world Wall-E birthday party:

• One of the main symbols in this movie was a lonely little plant Wall-E planted in an old shoe. It’s a great time of the year to get clearance priced plants from your local nursery. Provide plants, potting soil, and an old sheet for the children to work on. Have everyone bring an old shoe (or container of their choice) to plant their flower in.
• Hide a collection of “junk” and let the children go on a scavenger hunt to find items you have listed.
• Set up clues, and let the children go on a “junk” treasure hunt.
• Provide boxes and construction paper, let the children break up into teams to build a rocket ship or a robot based on one of the characters in the movie.
• Round up some interesting “junk” and let the children build their own junk wind chimes like the chimes hanging in Wall-e’s pad.
• Let the children build their own junk sculpture.
• Play follow the robots command (like Simon Says)
• Set up a series of clues in the back yard and have the children find their way back to planet earth.

What ideas can you come up with for a Wall-E birthday party?

WALL-E Party Supplies – Image via Celebrate Express

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Don’t limit your tree-trimming traditions to your evergreen. Transform Dad into a decorated Christmas tree in this hilarious after-dinner activity. Supply your kids with green and red crepe paper, aluminum foil, and masking tape. When they’re done, gather ’round the tree and take a photo to add to your family album or send as next year’s holiday card.

Doesn’t this look like fun?! I know my kids would enjoy this game and it sure would make some great pictures.

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