Rainbow Dance Party

Throwback Thursday?  Let’s revisit a post from the old blog – how ’bout the Rainbow Dance Party my daughter requested for her birthday a couple of years back.

 

My oldest turned 9 today.  Where oh where does the time go?  And can we make it stop?!  She’s growing up way too fast.

This year’s party request was not only her first big slumber party, but a dance party with a rainbow color scheme.  That gave me tons to work with and we’ve both been pretty excited for the big day to finally arrive.  Friday night found us with a house full of crazy, loud, sugar crazed 3rd graders 🙂

I’ll walk you through the highlights:

The invitation.  I went all digital again this year – it’s just so much faster than scrapbook style.  And makes it easier to use all or part of the design for adding in smaller details like the cupcake tags I sent to school.

I always try to make sure there is at least some nod to the party theme outside, especially since we usually end up with one or two new friends that may need a little help finding our house.  A bunch of balloons on the mailbox and another bunch on the porch did the trick this year.

I had SO much fun with the party decor this year. Did you notice the cake stand tutu in the first photo?  It was my first attempt at one and I love it!

I worked up a birthday theme set of beadboard pennant banners.  They’re so easy to change up to fit any theme.

Rainbow ruffled table skirt made entirely from plastic tablecloths.  I think this is my favorite piece of the whole party.  (I posted a tutorial here)

And a personalized banner with her name on it for the table.

Balloon topiaries – these were a last minute addition as I had kept forgetting about working up anything decorative for the folding table.  I literally threw these together out of scrap dowel pieces from the burn box and a couple scrap 2×4 sections, drilled a hole in the 2×4 to hold the dowel, then tied on a few balloons.  I didn’t even bother to paint the stands.  I don’t think the girls noticed or cared 🙂

I pretty much just cleared out the playroom to turn it into the dance/party room.  And just used strips from the same plastic tablecloths to dress up the ceiling.  I got a lot of bang for my buck on the decorations for this party.  A handful of plastic tablecloths, two bags of balloons, and 1/3 yard of tulle in each color – well under $20!  Everything else came from supplies I already had.

The Food:

Looks like the beginnings of an art project, right?  Actually it’s the cake batter.  Making the rainbow cake was surprisingly easy.  I just portioned the batter into six bowls and colored each one a different color, then poured each one into the pan.  As long as you don’t mess with it much, the colors stay separated while it bakes.

Ta-da!  Not my most spectacular cake, but sometimes that’s ok.

For dinner we had nachos, rainbow style:
red – tomatoes and salsa
orange – cheese sauce (in the mini crockpot)
yellow – shredded cheese
green – bell peppers
blue – blue tortilla chips
purple – red onion
plus some taco meat to fill it out

I was a bit worried about what kids dishing cheese and salsa onto their plates so I placed the messy stuff on a baking sheet. Turns out they didn’t spill after all, but better safe than sorry.

And rainbow fruit kebabs with fruit dip.  These were an absolute hit.  That whole stack disappeared in minutes.

The drink was also rainbow – I made a few colors of punch and froze it in ice cube trays.  Then the girls could pick their colors and we poured lemon-lime soda over the colored cubes.  (the girls were also very impressed that the paper around the soda bottle matched the paper on the tiny cake pennant banner.  I repeat – it’s all about the details 🙂  )  They thought this was a fantastic idea.

As you can see, I also had a couple of nice friends that stayed for the main part of the party with their daughters.  The extra set of hands came in handy a few times, for sure (Thanks for the help ladies!).

Here’s the whole set up with the food.

The party:

With the theme being a dance party, well of course we all danced.  For hours.  It was quite loud and crazy for a very long time 🙂  I had put together a playlist on the Ipod (a lot of Kidz Bop music) and set up the doc and speakers in the party room and the girls had a blast.  Most of the time they didn’t need any direction from me.  I did however, have a few games and ideas up my sleeve for when some of the girls started to lose interest.

We pulled out the glow sticks and turned off the lights and danced some more.  We played freeze dance (freeze when the lights are turned on, or when the music is stopped).  Some of us played audience/judges/photographer while others took turns performing solos.  They switched to Dance Revolution on the Wii for a while.  I had even thought about finding some of the line dance stuff from my middle school/high school days (everyone needs to learn the chicken dance,YMCA, and the Macarena right?) but I procrastinated and didn’t get that done.  If we had needed them I figured I could always bring it up on YouTube, but they had plenty to entertain them.

Then at 9:00 I declared it time to settle down so everyone got in pjs, spread out their sleeping bags, and I popped popcorn and brought out the rainbow snacks for movie time.

Yes, I did separate all the M&Ms by color.  What can I say?  It was a random OCD moment lol.  But doesn’t it look pretty that way?

I wish I could say it was all easy after that, but the girls were too wound up and couldn’t settle down.  With one thing or another, I pretty much didn’t get any sleep *sigh*  The only down side to have a wildly successful party for incredibly hyper and excited little girls.

Breakfast was HAD to be rainbow waffles!

I used pretty much the same technique as the cake.  Put the batter into different cups and color them all different colors then pour it into the waffle iron in sections.  It worked great!

Add in OJ, milk, bacon (which was eaten so quickly I didn’t even get a piece!), syrup and whipped cream and breakfast was all set.  By 9:00 AM the girls were all fed, dressed, and had packed up their sleeping bags and did some more dancing and free play until the parents arrived.

Everyone went home with their very own mix CD of Kaitlyn’s Top 10 Dance Hits (and early reports from the neighbor girl is that the CD is AWESOME)  🙂

And in the end we have ten very happy, rambunctious girls.  And one very tired Mommy.

Linking to:
The Party Bunch, Pin Me Link Party, Family Fun Friday, Thursday Favorite Things,