Rubber Ducky Party!

Saturday was Brennan's first ever friend party. His birthday is actually next week, but that gets complicated with Thanksgiving. I'm all about the theme, so I asked him what kind of party he wanted. He didn't know, so I gave him some suggestions - pirates, monsters, etc. - all the things he likes. Then he came up with the "duck" theme, which seemed odd to me. The last time we had a duck cake was when Spencer turned one. But he said he wanted the kind of rubber duckies that are dressed up. That made more sense, since he loves dress-ups. Actually all my boys like to play with those silly ducks, and not just in the bath.

I started out making a basic rubber ducky cake . I used one cake mix to bake two 8" round cakes (actually I only had one 8" cake pan, so I used a round casserole dish for the other one) and a small ball-shaped cake I made by changing the shape of a mini loaf pan (Dave's idea - he's so creative). I used toothpicks to attach the candy fruit slices for the tail and a chopstick to attach the head and beak - Tyler suggested I use an ice cream cone for that, since the orange slice they used on the website just looked like fat lips. I used chocolate chips for the eyes, since the non perils they used looked freaky.

Then we dressed up our duck. First we put a Mr. Potato Head fireman hat on it. That was pretty cute.

But we especially liked the pirate version. I used a fruit roll-up for the bandanna and a chocolate melting disc for the eye patch. Then I drew the lines with melted chocolate chips.

We surrounded him with bunches of fun rubber duckies I found at a party supply store.

As the guests arrived they decorated their treat bags with ducks and stickers. Our first game was Duck, Duck, Goose.

Then everyone chose a rubber ducky to use in our duck races. Dave made a little race course in our turtle sand box using water, irrigation tubing and rocks. Three kids raced at a time, using straws to blow the ducks around the track.

The ducks were a little top-heavy; but it worked great, and they had a lot of fun.




Next we went to our neighbors' house to feed their ducks. They were a little intimidated by us and didn't want to come out, but they did eat some of the bread we threw at them.

The whole group: my five boys plus ten friends from church and school. I was really happy with the turn-out, considering I didn't get the invitations out until four days before the party (somehow it snuck up on me), and the fact that there were two other school parties that same day. But I changed the time of the party so more people could come, and it all worked out. It's funny, because everyone in Brennan's class has a birthday between September and December. There were 4 other parties this week!

Then we went inside for cake and ice cream.

Brennan is not one to be shy by all the attention.

He had such a fun day. He was super happy before, during and after the party. In fact I'm glad we moved the time up to 11:00 in the morning, because it was even hard for him to wait that long.

He loved all his presents. He got a lot of craft stuff, which is one of his favorite things to do. We were busy crafting all weekend.

Levi knows all about opening presents now, and Brennan even let him help.

Finally, we went on a treasure hunt to find the treat bags. The clues were things like, "When you're hungry, don't go quackers! Eat some cheese and _______." And "Rubber ducky, you're the one. You make _______ lots of fun." After everyone left we had a few minutes to recover before we took Brennan and Tyler to other parties. I love birthday parties. They're a lot of work, but they're so much fun.