Birthdays: Noah's Candyland

*The following post was written last year but was never published. Im doing so now as part of Life as Mom's Birthday Cake Round up
For Noah's 7th birthday we decided to have a Candyland theme. Most of what you can find online for this theme is geared towards younger kids so I had a bit of trouble coming up with a plan.

I knew I wanted to have a colored path that led through out the house and ended at a castle, just like in the game. So I started with that and filled in activities as stops along the path.

Before I get ahead of myself though, Ill start at the beginning...the invites. I like to put a lot of effort into my invites, especially when having the party at home. Ive thrown birthday parties where no one or only a few kids have shown up. It seems that parents no longer feel comfortable bringing their kids to other people's homes. So I try to make the party sound enticing, or show that Ive planned more than just a basic house party. This year, I wasn't able to go all out like I had wanted, but I think they still ended up cute:

Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures during the party so there's nothing of the path. The first stop however, was guessing how many candies were in the jars. Such a simple activity and the items required to play act as the prizes...simple! Here's Micah showing how it's done.

Next, we decorated crowns. All the materials came from the dollar store so it was a cheap activity that allowed those late arrivals to catch up before the group moved on.

Next, we made candy necklaces. I don't know if Id do this again, just given that the kids were too excited to eat theirs before moving on. Maybe just a different order of activity would help.

Though they were really happy with their creations, as shown by the birthday boy himself below:

Finally, we made it downstairs to our rec room where I had a bouncy castle set up. I looked into the price of renting them, but decided to just buy our own. There was a budget for this party and I had to be careful in all the other areas not to go over, but in the end Im happy with the decision to buy rather than rent. First, renting would have required the use of a hall or community centre. The price of the rental of both would have been around $200. I instead bought this castle for $223, plus warranty. We kept it out for a couple of weeks after the party, and the kids loved being able to bounce at will.

What a mess!

For favors we ordered cotton candy bags from a local amusement business.

The cupcakes were well received though I didn't get a picture of the rainbow I made out of them. They were easier to make than most of the cakes I've attempted and they just looked cool!!