Will's Candyland Birthday Party!

Will decided he wanted a Candy Land Birthday party because he LOVES candy and thought it would be a perfect opportunity for he and his friends to get loaded up on CANDY! So I put my creative juices to work (we all did a lot of brainstorming at dinner one night thinking up activities) and planned another fabulous party for my little guy!

Normally I only allow my boys to invite as many friends as they are old, but it was too hard to stick with my rule this year because Will is a VERY social kid and he has too many friends and we didn't want to hurt any one's feelings, so I allowed him to invite pretty much all of his close friends. We had a house full! I set up the party to be like a game of Candy Land with each of the "lands" in a different room throughout the house with a different activity in each land... Starting with the "Gingerbread Tree" where they each decorated their own Gingerbread person.

Then they headed out to the garage where we had "Snowflake Lake" set up with a scooter race obstacle course. (It was the closest thing we could think of to ice skating.)

Next was a trip to "Chocolate Swamp" where they created their own pudding paint swamp creatures with their fingers.

Then we crossed the "Rainbow Trail" back into the house for a visit to "Peanut Acres" where each of the kids got a chance to use nutcrackers to open and taste a variety of nuts.

Next came a trip downstairs to the "Licorice Forest" where "Lord Licorice" had set up a bunch of licorice ropes hanging from the ceiling that the kids had to eat without using their hands. It was funny!

The next stop was "Peppermint Forrest" where they used croquet mallets to push a ball through the peppermint stick course. (For Jeff's sake, notice the creative way he got the peppermint sticks to stay standing...)

Then they crossed "Gumdrop Pass" into the "Gumdrop Mountains" where they raced each other while holding a gumdrop on a spoon in their mouth.

The final activity was "Lollipop Woods" where they had to use different colored lollipops to create patterns. They all had a great time playing the game! While we were eating cake we asked the kids which activity was their favorite and it was cool to hear how each one of them had a different favorite... there was something to appeal to everyone!

Will made a haul in presents! From Nerf guns to Lego's and all sorts of great things in between! He was very pleased!

For the cake, I "commissioned" Harmon's to create a Candy Land game board cake. I took a photo of the game board in to the bakers and then used the cards from the game to accessorize once they were finished. It turned out great!!

Here's the final pic of the whole gang! It was a sweet party for a sweet kid! Happy Birthday Will!

(It's too bad Disney doesn't own rights to the Candy Land game because I could totally send in all these party details to Family Fun magazine and get published! But I tried it with Drew's dog party and never heard back... Oh well, I love party planning! So it's all worth it! Especially when I'm planning a party for the ones I love!!)