A Very Medieval Birthday

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Our Knight has Made Three Turns ‘Round The Sun!

Toddler Knight Costume that we have purchased twice now!

And just like that, we don’t have any babies any more.

Even though the weather didn’t cooperate, we all survived a day of partying with about 15+ pre-schoolers and 35+ adults throughout the day for a very medieval birthday party (read more about the theme party decision here) earlier this month. The main kids party started at 11am, and though the majority of them left around 1pm, we had other family and friends trickling in all afternoon and a big family dinner with the Derby on in the evening. It was a loooong day – with a ton of prep. Now that I’m on the other side, I’m attributing the majority of my back pain that rendered me useless in my One Room Challenge to essentially a slow motion panic attack. Why do I do this to myself?

Oh yeah, because this is truly my favorite type of stress. I LOVE THEME PARTIES. I may need a few rounds with a chiropractor and a therapist afterwards, but so worth it to me! God I hope I never change.

Thankfully my brother was in town to help, and my husband is used to my brand of pre-party-crazy by now. They even one-upped me on the crazy and after a few drinks on Friday night, decided to battle one another in fruit carving. I couldn’t be more proud of them. For even more medieval/Game of Thrones recipes, check out this post.

Dragon Watermelon

Knight’s Helmet Cantaloupe

Hodor-itos – Tryionion Rings – Khal Drogurts – Beric’s Flaming Pepper Sword

Knights and Shields courtesy of Cookies by Courtney (she is fantastic if you are a local to the Albany, NY area!) and pretzel swords courtesy of my mother.

We didn’t go too crazy on decor because I really hoped we would be outside for the party and thought if I didn’t plan for it, I would somehow weld the weather to my demands. It was clear by Friday that it was going to be too cold/rainy so I picked up balloons and streamers and we just overdid the streamers in a few key areas of the house and that was more than enough to set the party vibe. I had an old banner from our oldest’s 1st birthday party that I reused with some new vinyl letters cut from my silhouette.

The jeweled goblets were a huge success with the littles – we got a lot of compliments from the parents on this activity. You really can’t beat shiny stickers in the three to four-year -old group.

Plain Goblets, 2. Self Adhesive Gemstones, 3. Pre Made Party Goblets

The fire breathing dragons TP rolls were a little more involved with tape and glue (I spray painted them beforehand to eliminate a messy step for everyone’s sanity), and eventually most of these received a few jewels as well. These were both great quiet activities for the shy ones or the kids that needed a break from the indoor bounce castle. Unfortunately, these got tossed out before I could get a good ‘after’ pic, but those tissue paper flames looked so cute when the kids blew through their dragon snout!