Keeping up with the Manssons: Jillian's 5th Birthday

Jillian chose Phineas and Ferb (which is a Disney Cartoon) for her birthday this year. I had a really hard time getting into this party. Mostly because Jillian really picked this theme because Henry wanted her to do it. Sigh...big brother always has the best ideas. So, I did all this in about two weeks. Plus, there was only about a dozen kids who were coming, so I was not super stressed to get multiple things done. We also were a little confused because everyone showed up at least 15 minutes late. Most came between 15-20 minutes late but I had 2 families come a little over 1.5 hours late. So, wierd...has to be the time of year.

I ended up ordering all the Phineas and Ferb stuff online pretty much everything online because Phineas and Ferb is no longer in production. It is on Netflix, which is the only TV my kids watch.
For decorations, we kept them pretty simple. A printed Happy Birthday Banner, some Tulle Pom Poms, and some giant teal balloons. We also got a K'Nex roller coaster (for the episode that they build the roller coaster) and some of the younger kids loved that because it was like a very fancy train. A few of the games helped with the decorations too.

We did a 'Busted' game, because in the show the older sister is always trying to bust her brothers. So, I filled up a balloon drop and let the kids go crazy. Most of the kids had fun. One did stand covering his ears, but there was lots of squealing and joy. Another game that helped with the decorating was a 'Where's Perry'. Each episode Perry the Platypus sneaks away and takes on his alter ego Agent P to thwart the Evil Dr. Doofenschmertz. And in each episode one character notices Perry is gone, says "Hey....Where's Perry?" So I printed some different Perry/Agent P cliparts and taped them to the walls around the house. I gave each kid a sheet and they did a scavenger hunt where they had to find each Perry. It was fun. We also had a punch board in lieu of a pinata. This time I got smart and made it reusable so I don't have to make another one. We also made mini catapults. It was a very basic design using something I found on you tube with popsicle sticks and rubber bands. I hot glued a little cup to the end and gave everyone 5 miniature marshmallows and had them assemble the catapult and I think it was a highlight of the party. So much fun...and so simple.

Food Table decorations

For food we had "Mr Slush Dawg" Hot Dogs and "Rocco Pizza" (Bagel Bites). I made Jello push pops from "Day of the living gelatin", cheese sticks from Cheeseopolis, Addicting Popcorn (which I separated into individual cups and lots of people at the popcorn this time!), spinach dip and bread. I also made a "Cupcake un-fun-inator" where it looked like Doofensmertz is changing cupcakes into vegetables. It was the only -inator of the party. Andrew wanted me to label everything with the inator (like chair-inator or table-inator) I told him if it was a project he wanted to do, he could do it. I made a Perry Watermelon bowl for the fruit. It turned out ok, but I definitely lack artistic skills. I also outsourced the cake this year. I bought a cake topper online and I thought I was just going to have to do the background then throw it on the cake, but it turned out to just be the characters and the tree stump...so I would have had to make the tree. Plus, Jillian wanted strawberry cake, which Ms. Debbie (my mom's friend) makes the best strawberry cake every.

For the take home, I think I may have the very last Phineas and Ferb PEZ dispensers left in the US. I had to contact 3 different places to find someone who still had them. I also made Sock Perry (which is like a sock monkey, but shaped like a platypus.) I found an online tutorial on how to make sock animals. She had a playtus, but I changed the design a little bit because I didn't want to have to find both teal socks for the body and orange mittens. So, I ordered teal socks from a Baseball Equipment store and I made the tail, bill and feet out of orange felt. I sewed the lines on the tail, then sewed them together, then sewed the tails onto the sock. Everything else was hot glued...because I am not all that good with my sewing machine. They turned out super cute.

Happy early birthday to my Jilly-bear.